One Leg on Earth

A Novel

5 May 2026

Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, but excluding the British Commonwealth.

Description

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.

Reviews

"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

"“‘Pemi Aguda is a daring writer like no other, with a voice that is unique and powerful. One Leg on Earth is sharp, bold, nuanced, and utterly absorbent. I will read anything ’Pemi Aguda writes!”" — Nicole Dennis-Benn, best-selling author of Patsy and Here Comes the Sun

"Through intricate and sumptuous prose, ’Pemi Aguda introduces us to a Lagos we have never known before, skillfully rendering its colors 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

"A fearless work of fiction in the lineage of Toni Morrison’s Sula. 'Pemi Aguda writes beautifully about the ways realities can break and why sometimes they should be shattered." — Megan Giddings, author of Meet Me at the Crossroads

"A portrait of a woman, a city, and a shared moment in time, and a story about how it feels when the changes in 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! ... One Leg on Earth caught me in its wave and I happily, greedily, tumbled along." — Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrillo