One Leg on Earth
On sale
7th May 2026
Price: £16.99
‘An astonishing talent’ Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds
‘Gripped me from the first page’ Ramona Ausubel, author of The Last Animal
‘One of my favourite living writers’ Jeff VanderMeer
All across the city, pregnant women are walking into water …
Twenty-three-year-old Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to start her life. Working for a slick architectural firm, she finds a city of adventure and opportunity. Her new world is one of fancy gallery openings, glamorous friends, and all the shiny potential of the future, encapsulated in projects like Omi City, the brand-new housing development her company is building.
But Yosoye’s idyllic vision of Lagos soon begins to seem naïve, and its darker, stranger layers trouble her. Something is not right about Omi City, but no-one will give her satisfactory answers. And then, after a chance encounter in her first weeks in Lagos, Yosoye realizes that she is pregnant…
A vibrant and atmospheric evocation of modern Lagos, the promises of progress and the mysterious lure of the abyss, One Leg on Earth is a haunting and arresting story from an unmissable new voice in literature.
‘Gripped me from the first page’ Ramona Ausubel, author of The Last Animal
‘One of my favourite living writers’ Jeff VanderMeer
All across the city, pregnant women are walking into water …
Twenty-three-year-old Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to start her life. Working for a slick architectural firm, she finds a city of adventure and opportunity. Her new world is one of fancy gallery openings, glamorous friends, and all the shiny potential of the future, encapsulated in projects like Omi City, the brand-new housing development her company is building.
But Yosoye’s idyllic vision of Lagos soon begins to seem naïve, and its darker, stranger layers trouble her. Something is not right about Omi City, but no-one will give her satisfactory answers. And then, after a chance encounter in her first weeks in Lagos, Yosoye realizes that she is pregnant…
A vibrant and atmospheric evocation of modern Lagos, the promises of progress and the mysterious lure of the abyss, One Leg on Earth is a haunting and arresting story from an unmissable new voice in literature.
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Reviews
Breathtaking! And to borrow a phrase from the book: heart wilding! Written with 'Pemi Aguda's characteristically sharp, thoughtful and gorgeous prose, the deliciously suspenseful and immensely human One Leg on Earth caught me in its wave and I happily, greedily, tumbled along. I adored every word in this book
Through her intricate and sumptuous prose, 'Pemi Aguda introduces us to a Lagos we have never known before, skilfully rendering its colours and peering into its shadowed corners. Every carefully chosen word draws the reader further into an intrigue that is all at once political, personal, and otherworldly. One Leg on Earth is an enchantment
'Pemi Aguda is a brilliantly daring writer like none other with a voice that is unique and powerful. One Leg on Earth is a sharp, funny, bold, nuanced, utterly absorbent debut I did not know I needed. I will read anything 'Pemi Aguda writes!
A portrait of a woman, a city, and a shared moment in time, and a story about how it feels when the changes in a life are intertwined with bigger, scarier changes in the world outside. One Leg on Earth gripped me from the first page
One Leg On Earth is a dizzying tale of the gluttony of industry, the intrigue of newness, and the maddening, frightening and ever-growing desire for belonging; set in a Lagos which is as captivating as it is incomprehensible. Aguda is a brilliant storyteller, her prose rich with complicated beauty. One Leg on Earth is a gorgeous debut
One Leg on Earth is a haunting, beautiful novel, written with exquisite care. A kind of horror story about the cost of 'progress' for a city, a culture, for a human soul. That horror is balanced by the potency of motherhood, its blessings and its trials. 'Pemi Aguda writes like she knows magic and, based on this book, I believe it
A fearless work of fiction in the lineage of Toni Morrison's Sula. Aguda writes beautifully about the ways realities can break and why sometimes they should be shattered