SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2018
A New York Times Notable Book of 2018

Even the men in black armor, the ones
Jangling handcuffs and keys, what else

Are they so buffered against, if not love's blade
Sizing up the heart's familiar meat?

In Wade in the Water, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith's signature voice - inquisitive, lyrical and wry - turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men and violence. The various connotations of the title, taken from a spiritual once sung on the Underground Railroad which smuggled slaves to safety in 19th-century America, resurface throughout the book, binding past and present together. Collaged voices and documents recreate both the correspondence between slave owners and the letters sent home by African Americans enlisted in the US Civil War. Survivors' reports attest to the experiences of recent immigrants and refugees. Accounts of near-death experiences intertwine with the modern-day fallout of a corporation's illegal pollution of a major river and the surrounding land; and, in a series of beautiful lyrical pieces, the poet's everyday world and the growth and flourishing of her daughter are observed with a tender and witty eye. Marrying the contemporary and the historical to a sense of the transcendent, haunted and holy, this is a luminous book by one of America's essential poets.

The second book in the trilogy which began with the Booker prize-winning The Famished Road.

'A love story and an account of the conflict between the parties of the Rich and Poor... Okri's voice is all his own' Independent

Having outwitted death, Azaro, the spirit child, remains in the land of the Living. Oppression and violence continue to plague the city, and while political factions battle, bar owner Madame Koto backs the 'Party of the Rich' with magical, bewitching force. But for Azaro, his adventure is tied up with his parents, and so his story takes on yet another heroic adventure to save them both from the forces of the world.

'Ben Okri writes beautifully...a triumph of inspiration over the everyday' The Times

THE SUNDAY TIMES 1# BESTSELLER & BOOKER PRIZE WINNER

RECIPIENT OF THE WOMENS PRIZE OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION AWARD

*One of Goodreads Most Popular Books of the Past Decade*

This is Britain as you've never read it.
This is Britain as it has never been told.

From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They're each looking for something - a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .

'The most absorbing book I read all year' Roxane Gay

'[Bernardine Evaristo] is one of the very best that we have' Nikesh Shukla

'Beautifully interwoven stories of identity, race, womanhood, and the realities of modern Britain. The characters are so vivid, the writing is beautiful and it brims with humanity' Nicola Sturgeon

'A choral love song to black womanhood in modern Great Britain' Elle

'Bernardine Evaristo can take any story from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life' Ali Smith

'Exceptional. You have to order it right now' Stylist