Recommendations from our site
“Set in South London among its Ghanaian diaspora, this—like his first novel Open Water—is a lushly-written love story set to a powerful musical soundtrack; Small Worlds also digs deep into the immigrant experience and intergenerational trauma. “ Read more...
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
“Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson is a book about family, about music, about growing up in a Ghanaian family in South London—specifically, in Peckham. It’s very lyrical, it’s very tender. It has a wonderful eye for the idealism and vulnerability of youth. It’s also about growing up as a black Londoner and the challenges that even in the time it is set—in the early 2010s—still confronted any black kids in a community like that. Its political content is not strident. It’s not on the surface. It’s deeply embedded in the process of celebrating family life and, also, the music that for this character and for his friends represents a very specific kind of liberation. It’s about memory and freedom and the kinds of love that bind a community together and, for me, that’s certainly political enough.”
