ONE LEG ON EARTH

220pp., paperback, Virago, London, 2026

ISBN: 9780349018287

When twenty-three-year-old Yosoye arrives in Lagos to work for a slick architectural firm, she is enthralled by a city that seems full of the promises of progress, encapsulated in projects like Omi City, the new housing development her company is building. But soon she senses something is not right about Omi City - and then, after a chance encounter, she realises that she is pregnant…

"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

"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." Rochelle Dowden-Lord, author of Lush

‘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, among other publications. Her short-story collection, Ghostroots, was a finalist for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing (for the story ‘Breastmilk’).