Open Water is a novel by Caleb Azumah Nelson, published 4 February 2021 by Viking Press and again in 2022 by Penguin Books.

You connected through your shared experience of life, how you got treated differently because of your skin color, how you are seen as a Black body rather than a human and how this has made you feel like you don't belong anywhere.

How you have at different times met the police and had false accusations thrown your way because they have already mentally fit you into a box, where you are a Black body rather than a name.

The year before Azumah Nelson began writing Open Water, his godfather, aunt, and three grandparents died.

"[1] Nelson is also a photographer and to write Open Water he told Penguin, his publisher, in an interview that he looked at pictures he had taken and put them into words, how they made him feel, what they said.

This is also a part of the book where the main character is a photographer and captures different moments through his lens; he describes how they look as well as how they make you feel.

The novel has been translated into several languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Greek, Swedish, Portuguese, Slovenian, Polish, and Chinese.

"[6] Guernica's Mary Wang applauded Azumah Nelson's writing, saying, "Open Water's narrative moves like jazz, punctured with loops, diversions, and improvisation.

The characters' relationship is sketched through a series of images that emerge as quickly as they fade, as if tied to a rolling film reel.

"[15] Ploughshares' Brady Brickner-Wood provided a mixed review, noting that the book is "brimming with brilliant ideas and charming interiority," but it "struggles to temper its lyricism and narrative ambitions, resulting in a captivating if not uneven read.

"[16] Despite criticisms, Brickner-Wood called Open Water "a moving novel that celebrates Black art and explores generational trauma."