Caleb Azumah Nelson

His 2021 debut novel, Open Water, won the Costa Book Award for First Novel.

Azumah Nelson grew up in and currently lives in southeast London (Bellingham). For the first six years of his life, he lived with his maternal grandmother after she moved to London from Ghana, though she eventually returned to her home country. Although Azumah Nelson hopes to travel more and visit Ghana again, he intends to remain in Bellingham for most of his life.

He was educated at a "predominantly black primary school" before obtaining a scholarship to the "elite" independent Alleyn's School in the "affluent neighbourhood of Dulwich", which waived all his fees.

Beyond writing and photography, Azumah Nelson played violin for ten years.

Azumah Nelson's dream to become an author began as a teenager. In 2019, after his godfather, aunt, and three of his grandparents died, he quit his job at Apple and began writing full time.

Azumah Nelson began shooting using a film camera when he was around eighteen years old.

He believes his "writing and photography go hand in hand; they both act as sites of honest expression, and encourage me to think about how I see the world, how I move through it, how I love and express that love. When I’m confronted by the blank page, in a way, I’m confronting myself, who I am, all of the nuances which make me. There’s a freedom in affording myself or others this kind of space, to just be themselves, even if that’s for a brief moment."

In 2019, Azumah Nelson won the Palm* Photo People's Choice prize and was shortlisted for the Palm* Photo Prize.

Azumah Nelson's writing has been published in Litro and The White Review.

His short story "Pray" was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award (2020).

Although he is inspired by many artists, Azumah Nelson has stated that his primary role models are Zadie Smith, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Kendrick Lamar, Barry Jenkins, and his parents.

Open Water (2021)

Azumah Nelson's debut novel, Open Water, was published on 4 February 2021 by Viking Press.

Small Worlds (2023)

Azumah Nelson's second novel, which he wrote in three months, was published by Viking in 2023. Rights for a television adaptation have been acquired by Block Media. Small Worlds has been described by The Voice as "an exhilarating and expansive novel about the worlds we build for ourselves, the worlds we live, dance and love within." It was characterised by Buzz magazine as "a stunningly poetic novel about identity, grief, and jazz." Colin Grant's analysis in The Guardian included observations about it being "an affecting meditation on the migrant experience," while the reviewer for i newspaper stated that "at times Small Worlds feels like the most sensitive book ever written, because no matter how serious its themes – race riots, a parent’s depression – Azumah Nelson deals with it with profound tenderness."

Novels

• Open Water (2021)
• Small Worlds (2023)

Short stories

• A Little Unsteadily into Light (2022, New Island Books)