Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
These Heavy Black Bones
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
99p for the first 3 months
These Heavy Black Bones
Pre-order Now for £24.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
*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 women 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.
Critic reviews
"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)