These Heavy Black Bones
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
Available as Hardback
A brave and beautiful memoir written by the first Black woman to swim for Great Britain that reflects on race, identity, trauma and power with visceral vulnerability
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
‘Poetic, candid and utterly compelling’ - FREYA BROMLEY
‘Absolutely remarkable’ - LYNN BARBER
‘Reads with the tension of a thriller, illuminating the world of elite sport’ - CATHY RENTZENBRINK
‘An embodied water odyssey’ - LIDIA YUKNAVITCH
This is not a story about making history.
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell was once a double British Champion and the first Black woman ever to swim for Great Britain. As her body and mind are sharpened through gruelling training, press scrutiny and the harshness of adolescence, Rebecca charts her career’s ascent and her singular love of the water, before explaining why she walked away from it all.
A compulsive and unforgettable study of intensity, These Heavy Black Bones meditates on Blackness, identity and the ecstasy of peak physical performance, and lays bare the pressures within the swimming world.
”[These Heavy Black Bones] documents the dedication demanded of a young athlete; the sacrifice and strain that comes with competing at the highest of levels. It’s vulnerable and exposing”
observer
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“What a book! Rebecca is such a brilliant writer and These Heavy Black Bones reads with the tension of a thriller, illuminating the world of elite sport, both the struggle and sacrifice. A feast in every way: for the intellect and the senses, so very visceral”
Cathy Rentzenbrink
“Absolutely remarkable. There can’t be many top athletes who are also top writers and so devastatingly honest. It is truly unique”
Lynn Barber
“In a searing new memoir, former champion swimmer Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell reveals the true cost of excellence”
vogue
“Not often do I read a story where the writer loves and inhabits water deeply enough to change her life forever. Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell’s These Heavy Black Bones is an embodied water odyssey from a fellow writer, athlete and aquanaut, a woman who shreds both the competition at the highest levels as well as the structures that hold up white systems of oppression. A decolonisation of body and voice. A love song to water and what it takes to self-liberate”
Lidia Yuknavitch
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell is an ex-elite athlete who swam for both Great Britain and Kenya over a 10-year career. She is a former British Champion, world number one and the first Black woman ever to swim for Great Britain. Honoured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2023 in the Social Impact category and TIME’s list of 18 Black leaders working to end the racial wealth gap, Rebecca is also the CEO of the 10,000 Interns Foundation, a non-profit that champions underrepresented talent. Rebecca studied Fine Art at the University of Oxford. She lives in London but still calls Kenya home. These Heavy Black Bones is her first book.
@raajulubushell