Caleb Azumah Nelson

Caleb Azumah Nelson (born in 1993) is a British–Ghanaian writer and photographer. His 2021 debut novel, Open Water, won the Costa Book Award for First Novel.

Quotes

Open Water (2021)

• It’s one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen.

• You have always thought if you opened your mouth in open water you would drown, but if you didn't open your mouth you would suffocate. So here you are, drowning.

• What you're trying to say is that it's easier for you to hide in your own darkness, than emerge cloaked in your own vulnerability. Not better, but easier. However the longer you hold it in, the more likely you are to suffocate. At some point, you must breathe.

• Every time you remember something, the memory weakens, as you’re remembering the last recollection, rather than the memory itself. Nothing can remain in tact. Still, it does not stop you wanting, does not stop you longing.

• You ache. You ache all over. You are aching to be you, but you're scared of what it means to do so.

• You know that to love is both to swim and to drown. You know to love is to be a whole, partial, a joint, a fracture, a heart, a bone. It is to bleed and heal. It is to be in the world, honest. It is to place someone next to your beating heart, in the absolute darkness of your inner, and trust they will hold you close. To love is to trust, to trust is to have faith. How else are you meant to love? You knew what you were getting into, but taking the Underground, returning home with no certainty of when you will see her next, it is terrifying.

• It's easier to hide in your own darkness, than to emerge, naked and vulnerable, blinking in your own light.