These Heavy Black Bones
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
Available as Hardback
6 June 2024
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
*Listed as one of TIME’s 18 Black leaders working to end the racial wealth gap*
In Kenya the pool was green and surrounded by concrete so hot it burnt the soles of her small feet. She didn’t know any different. A decade later she would be double British Champion and the first Black woman ever to swim for Great Britain. But this story is not about making history.
As her body and mind are sharpened through gruelling training, press scrutiny and the harshness of adolescence, Rebecca questions who she is swimming for and what the onward journey to the Olympics will cost her.
A compulsive and unforgettable study of intensity, These Heavy Black Bones meditates on Blackness, identity and the ecstasy of peak physical performance. In stunning prose, Rebecca charts her career’s ascent, her singular love of the water, and lays bare the pressures within her swimming world.
“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
See more reviews
“Absolutely remarkable. There can’t be many top athletes who are also top writers and so devastatingly honest. It is truly unique”
Lynn Barber
“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
“As a teenage swimmer, Ajulu-Bushell realized that being exceptional came with a cost. Struggling with the pressure she felt to succeed in a predominately white sport, she quit while training for the 2012 Olympics”
time
“Speaks about the intensity of training and the pressure of often being the only Black woman poolside”
women’s Health
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. Her 2019 documentary, Breakfast in Kisumu, which she directed and produced, premiered at renowned film festival, IDFA, and her essay, ‘Hegemanic America’ – on immigration and interracial relationships – won the 2021 US ‘Justice For’ Essay Prize. Honoured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2023 in the Social Impact category and selected as one of TIME’s 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 by creating paid internship opportunities. Rebecca studied Fine Art at the University of Oxford, Brasenose College. She lives in London but still calls Kenya home. These Heavy Black Bones is her first book.
@raajulubushell