Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
These Heavy Black Bones  By  cover art

These Heavy Black Bones

By: Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
Narrated by: Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
Pre-order: Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pre-order for $27.27

Pre-order for $27.27

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's 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 careers’s ascent, her singular love of the water, and lays bare the pressures within her swimming world.

©2024 Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell (P)2024 Canongate Books Ltd

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)

What listeners say about These Heavy Black Bones

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.