One Leg on Earth: A Novel by 'Pemi Aguda (Hardcover) (PREORDER)

Fiction - Literary - Occult and Supernatural - World Literature - Africa - Nigeria

RELEASE DATE: 5/5/2026  (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER'S WAREHOUSE) 

From the author of the National Book Award finalist Ghostroots, a debut novel that thrills with its eerie mix of folklore and history.

The lonely daughter of a distant mother, Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to change her life. Weeks after she begins an internship at a fancy architectural firm, she discovers she is pregnant. Yosoye is joyful―a new life brings the hope of connection and companionship.

But an inexplicable force is haunting the pregnant women of Lagos. As construction speeds ahead on the firm’s glossy new development on land reclaimed from the ocean, stories of the uncanny deaths in the city’s open waters reach a fever pitch. Yosoye finds herself stalked by a presence she can neither ignore nor appease―without risking her unborn baby and her precarious hopes for the future.

In One Leg on Earth, ‘Pemi Aguda turns the question of who belongs in a city into an arresting exploration of what it means to be a mother in an unforgiving world, and a haunting vision of the dark side of progress.

AUTHOR BIO: 
'Pemi Aguda is the author of One Leg on Earth and Ghostroots, a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Trained as an architect in Lagos, Nigeria, she lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

'Pemi Aguda is a daring writer like no other, with a voice that is unique and powerful. One Leg on Earth is a sharp, funny, bold, nuanced, and utterly absorbing debut I did not know I needed. I will read anything 'Pemi Aguda writes!"--Nicole Dennis-Benn, best-selling author of Patsy and Here Comes the Sun

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, for 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