Before We Hit the Ground
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Before We Hit the Ground
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Selali Fiamanya
About this listen
'A moving exploration of family, migration, class, queerness and belonging… beautifully rendered' JESSICA ANDREWS, prize-winning author of Saltwater and Milk Teeth
'A deeply observant, perceptive writer' JOANNA CANNON, bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep
'Masterful… It will stay with you long after you finish it' JJ BOLA
‘Love was a tightrope between freedom and control. He didn’t know how others seemed to walk it with ease’
Elom can’t make sense of love. It’s like a language he can’t speak, though he’s heard the words before.
He wants to feel understood – by his well-meaning yet misapprehending family, his self-assured partner Ben, and his boisterous friends – but he never knows the right thing to say.
How can you know yourself, in a world that’s constantly changing?
Set across Ghana and Scotland, this is an intimate portrait of one man’s search for belonging, a family’s attempt to love, and the choices that make a life.
©2025 Selali Fiamanya (P)2025 HarperCollins PublishersCritic reviews
A moving exploration of family, migration, class, queerness and belonging. Tender and troubling, Selali Fiamanya’s debut shows us the ways in which a loss of language can manifest as a loss of love. This beautifully rendered novel explores what happens to our sense of self when the world around us is shifting and unstable'
(Jessica Andrews)A deeply observant, perceptive writer
(Joanna Cannon)A moving and masterful debut… tells an untold story that tenderly treads the lines of tradition and modernity, love and loss, courage and fear, and hope and despair. It will stay with you long after you finish it
(JJ Bola)A remarkable debut; quietly devastating, utterly moving and beautifully wrought
(Jendella Benson)Warm, engrossing, deeply moving. I loved these characters
(Holly Brickley)Remarkably nuanced and deeply absorbing… transcends its subject matter through its portrayal, not only of family, but of the numerous ambivalences of love, loyalty, loss, friendship and rupture. A heartbreaking and uplifting novel
(Jacob Ross)A deeply honest and compelling book… expansive, surprising, delightful, vulnerable and always real. Wonderfully broad and deliciously bold, this is a much-needed and timely addition to British fiction
(Olumide Popoola)An ambitious debut that picks apart the intricacies of family life, exposing both the painful and joyous sides of humanity to the reader, so that we wonder about these characters long after turning that final page
(Maame Blue)