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One Leg on Earth

The 'stunning' (Abi Dare) 2026 debut novel from the National Book Award finalist

'Pemi Aguda

$45

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English
Virago Press Ltd
07 May 2026
'AN ASTONISHING TALENT' Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds

'STUNNING' Abi Dare, author of The Girl with the Louding Voice

'GORGEOUS' Rochelle Dowden-Lord, author of Lush

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 naive, 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.
By:  
Imprint:   Virago Press Ltd
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 218mm,  Width: 136mm,  Spine: 28mm
Weight:   368g
ISBN:   9780349018270
ISBN 10:   0349018278
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

'Pemi Aguda is from Lagos, Nigeria. She is the winner of the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers' Award and a graduate of the Zell MFA program at the University of Michigan. Her work has been published in American Short Fiction, Granta, One Story, Ploughshares, Zoetrope and The Best Short Stories 2022 and 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, edited by Valeria Luiselli (2022) and Lauren Groff (2023), among other publications. Her short-story collection Ghostroots was a finalist for the National Book Award, longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing (for the story 'Breastmilk').

Reviews for One Leg on Earth: The 'stunning' (Abi Dare) 2026 debut novel from the National Book Award finalist

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 -- Ramona Ausubel, author of The Last Animal 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 -- Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio 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 -- Megan Giddings, author of The Women Could Fly '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 absorbing debut I did not know I needed. I will read anything 'Pemi Aguda writes! -- Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun 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 -- Shannon Sanders, author of Company 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 -- Victor LaValle, author of Lone Women 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 -- Rochelle Dowden-Lord, author of Lush


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