An image of author Derek Owusu in the Penguin Podcast studio

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Interviews

The Penguin Podcast: episode 2 – Black History Month

A collage of five Penguin authors set against a purple background

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Features

‘It was the first time I saw myself in literature’: Penguin authors on the book they wish they read in school

Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth Harmon in the Netflix series, The Queen's Gambit. Here Beth is seen looking pensive at a chess board, in the midst of a room of onlookers.

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Reading lists

Books to read if you loved The Queen’s Gambit

Derek Owusu

A dreamy, impressionistic offeringof reassembled fragments of memories emerging through the misty beauty of a deliciously individualistic poetic sensibility with flashes of Twi and UK London ebonics to further remind us of what has been missing from British poetry... I can't tell you how impressed I was and how much I enjoyed reading this stunning book.

Bernadine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

When writing is this honest, it soars. I think that this is why the words in this collection fly around you and settle, as they have. What an incredible use of language and truth. Hope this reaches all the mandem. We need more.

These are words that come from the heart, the lived life and owned observations. Powerful and moving. Social realism at its best.

I hate Derek Owusu for the same reasons I love him: he is the sort of writer who makes me and other writers have doubts about whether we belong in this art. He is one of a kind. Truly a precious stone of a poet. His words evoke flawless empathy and leave me with either a strained face from smiling or a wet page from crying. I consider myself enlightened, lucky, intimidated and gripped when I read his words.

Derek Owusu’s writing is honest, moving, delicate, but tough. Once you lock on to his words, it is hard to break eye contact. A beautiful meditation on childhood, coming of age, the now, and the media. This work is heartfelt.

That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu reads like an open wound. The prose runs like a pulse, builds like the beat of some lowercase drum. Honest and beautiful.

Guy Gunaratne, author of In Our Mad and Furious City

That Reminds Me is heartbreaking, important and original. Derek Owusu's words are precious scars.

Christie Watson, author of The Language of Kindness

Owusu’s work is a much-needed contribution to literature. His work is profoundly tender, often wry and always sharply observed. He grants us a rare, nuanced glimpse into the world of a vulnerable young black man, negotiating his identity in a complex and difficult world.

Honest, insightful, and woven together in a narrative that will undoubtedly change lives.

That Reminds Me is extraordinary. It’s a complex, emotional story – intimately told. Every word is used to great effect, and the images Derek evokes are simply stunning. It is unique, original and so very beautiful. I enjoyed this book very much.

This book was gripping and an emotional rollercoaster. One that we could not put down.

Derek Owusu's voice is originally poetical and profoundly authentic. That Reminds Me is an addictive and painful delight, full of familiar bruises I don't know how I got but couldn't stop pressing.

It's a tough read that rewards a thousand times. I love the fragmentary form and the sense of beauty that builds throughout. So raw, tender and transporting.

A moving, semi-autobiographical story about a vulnerable black man - a one-off. The story's most touching moments are about compassion and are never oversold... The sense is of suffering making room for empathetic insight. This book is brave and moving... Owusu writes with an enlightening fluency.

If you want to see what the policies from Whitehall that keep the working classes struggling look like in human guise, when placed in an environment where their identities have to be negotiated daily, That Reminds Me is the viewfinder you need. It’s post-Thatcher reality in the inner city, clouded over by racism, infused with West African stoicism, narrated by a voice that has known something different. It’s life as a growing boy experiences it, with a powerless wonder; it’s messy and beautiful, fractured but eloquent. K’s story reminds us that our scars should not strip us of our dignity.

In weaving emotion into literary gold, truth has never been this painfully told, or this beautiful.

A fast-paces, dense, poetic, original and bewitching story by an important new writer. That Reminds Me will long be remembered by readers.

Deserves the same recognition that greeted Max Porter's similarly constructed fictionalised memoir Grief is the Thing With Feathers... uses its broken-up style to explore experiences that defy easy comprehension. There is nothing indulgent about this quietly observed account of a black man Owusu gives the name of K... There is a physicality to his writing, the impression of incoherent feelings being wrestled into shape, that lends his book heft. K's future is, in the end, ambiguous, but Owusu's surely gleams bright.

A bold prose poem written in novella form, That Reminds Me is one of the most powerful pieces of writing to be published in 2019.

The latest release from Stormzy's increasingly impressive #Merky imprint, this is a stylistically ambitious memoir of a precarious Tottenham upbringing. Owusu writes with a poet's gift for seemingly incidental observation in a potent story that's left deliberately, troublingly fragmented.

A virtuosic debut by a raw new talent. An honest and timely evaluation of a black man's struggle to belong and later come to terms with failing mental health. Utterly convincing and deeply sad, Owusu's storytelling will bring readers to tears.

Derek Owusu is not just a brilliant writer, he’s a deep thinker. Anything he does is relevant, and meaningful. It would be easy to say that he is mainly concerned with the condition of young black men, but in truth he speaks truth to all of us.

Written with candour and verve, and full of moments of heart-stopping anguish and beauty.

Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2020

WINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2020 
___________________________________ 
'A singular achievement.' 
Michael Donkor, Guardian 
 
'Heartbreaking, important and original.' 
 Christie Watson, author of THE LANGUAGE OF KINDNESS 
 
'Derek Owusu's writing is honest, moving, delicate, but tough. Once you lock on to his words, it is hard to break eye contact. A beautiful meditation on childhood, coming of age, the now, and the media. This work is heartfelt.' 
 Benjamin Zephaniah 
 
 'Honest and beautiful.' 
 Guy Gunaratne, author of IN OUR MAD AND FURIOUS CITY 
 
 'When writing is this honest, it soars. What an incredible use of language and truth.' 
 Yrsa Daley-Ward 
___________________________________ 
Anansi, your four gifts raised to nyame granted you no power over the stories I tell... 
 
This is the story of K. 
 
K is sent into care before a year marks his birth. He grows up in fields and woods, and he is happy, he thinks. When K is eleven, the city reclaims him. He returns to an unknown mother and a part-time father, trading the fields for flats and a community that is alien to him. Slowly, he finds friends. Eventually, he finds love. He learns how to navigate the city. But as he grows, he begins to realise that he needs more than the city can provide. He is a man made of pieces. Pieces that are slowly breaking apart 
 
That Reminds Me is the story of one young man, from birth to adulthood, told in fragments of memory. It explores questions of identity, belonging, addiction, sexuality, violence, family and religion. It is a deeply moving and completely original work of literature from one of the brightest British writers of today.

Derek Owusu

Praise for That Reminds Me

A dreamy, impressionistic offeringof reassembled fragments of memories emerging through the misty beauty of a deliciously individualistic poetic sensibility with flashes of Twi and UK London ebonics to further remin ...

When writing is this honest, it soars. I think that this is why the words in this collection fly around you and settle, as they have. What an incredible use of language and truth. Hope this reaches all the mandem. W ...

These are words that come from the heart, the lived life and owned observations. Powerful and moving. Social realism at its best.

A dreamy, impressionistic offeringof reassembled fragments of memories emerging through the misty beauty of a deliciously individualistic poetic sensibility with flashes of Twi and UK London ebonics to further remin ...

When writing is this honest, it soars. I think that this is why the words in this collection fly around you and settle, as they have. What an incredible use of language and truth. Hope this reaches all the mandem. W ...

These are words that come from the heart, the lived life and owned observations. Powerful and moving. Social realism at its best.

A dreamy, impressionistic offeringof reassembled fragments of memories emerging through the misty beauty of a deliciously individualistic poetic sensibility with flashes of Twi and UK London ebonics to further remin ...

When writing is this honest, it soars. I think that this is why the words in this collection fly around you and settle, as they have. What an incredible use of language and truth. Hope this reaches all the mandem. W ...

These are words that come from the heart, the lived life and owned observations. Powerful and moving. Social realism at its best.

Articles featuring Derek Owusu

The Penguin Podcast: episode 2 – Black History Month

‘It was the first time I saw myself in literature’: Penguin authors on the book they wish they read in school

Books to read if you loved The Queen’s Gambit

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