One Leg on Earth

A powerfully eerie portrait of Lagos … a virtuoso of dread and suspense, Aguda splices eco-horror, cosmic distress and ideas of the monstrous feminine into a singularly nail-biting experience – Guardian
Powerful, vividly written … a superb parable of loneliness, greed and desire, full of creeping dread * Marie Claire *
Intricately layered, striking, powerful, dazzling, irresistibly strange * New York Times *
Lyrical and lovely * People Magazine *
A stunning and lyrical literary horror novel set in the city of Lagos, Nigeria * Esquire, the 18 Best Books of 2026 *
A stunning achievement. ‘Pemi Aguda writes with luminous prose that feels both mystical and human. Brief and powerful, this conceptually daring novel haunted me long after I turned the last page – Abi Daré, author of The Girl with the Louding Voice
A portrait of a woman, a city, and a shared moment in time, and a story about how it feels when the changes in a life are intertwined with bigger, scarier changes in the world outside. One Leg on Earth gripped me from the first page – Ramona Ausubel, author of The Last Animal
Breathtaking! And to borrow a phrase from the book: heart wilding! Written with ‘Pemi Aguda’s characteristically sharp, thoughtful and gorgeous prose, the deliciously suspenseful and immensely human One Leg on Earth caught me in its wave and I happily, greedily, tumbled along. I adored every word in this book – Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio
A fearless work of fiction in the lineage of Toni Morrison’s Sula. Aguda writes beautifully about the ways realities can break and why sometimes they should be shattered – Megan Giddings, author of The Women Could Fly
‘Pemi Aguda is a brilliantly daring writer like none other with a voice that is unique and powerful. One Leg on Earth is a sharp, funny, bold, nuanced, utterly absorbing debut I did not know I needed. I will read anything ‘Pemi Aguda writes! – Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun
Through her intricate and sumptuous prose, ‘Pemi Aguda introduces us to a Lagos we have never known before, skilfully rendering its colours and peering into its shadowed corners. Every carefully chosen word draws the reader further into an intrigue that is all at once political, personal, and otherworldly. One Leg on Earth is an enchantment – Shannon Sanders, author of Company
One Leg on Earth is a haunting, beautiful novel, written with exquisite care. A kind of horror story about the cost of ‘progress’ for a city, a culture, for a human soul. That horror is balanced by the potency of motherhood, its blessings and its trials. ‘Pemi Aguda writes like she knows magic and, based on this book, I believe it – Victor LaValle, author of Lone Women
One Leg On Earth is a dizzying tale of the gluttony of industry, the intrigue of newness, and the maddening, frightening and ever-growing desire for belonging; set in a Lagos which is as captivating as it is incomprehensible. Aguda is a brilliant storyteller, her prose rich with complicated beauty. One Leg on Earth is a gorgeous debut – Rochelle Dowden-Lord, author of Lush
Marvelous … a clear-eyed exploration of daughterhood, community, and the human costs of urban development, powered by an immersive portrait of a woman wrestling with the question of whom and what she’s willing to sacrifice for the life she wants. This is unforgettable * Publishers Weekly *
Dark fantasy meets workplace drama in this immersive debut novel and delightfully fresh take on the pregnancy-as-horror-story trope… Aguda’s depiction of the culture, language, and ambience of the Nigerian city is so vivid that every dip into its pages is wholly transporting * Oprah Daily *

Pemi Aguda is from Lagos, Nigeria. She is the winner of the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers’ Award and a graduate of the Zell MFA program at the University of Michigan. Her work has been published in American Short Fiction, Granta, One Story, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and The Best Short Stories 2022 and 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, edited by Valeria Luiselli (2022) and Lauren Groff (2023), among other publications. Her short-story collection Ghostroots was a finalist for the National Book Award, longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing (for the story ‘Breastmilk’).

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