Grow Where They Fall

Hugely enjoyable and very moving, Donkor’s frank, clear-eyed and funny prose is so refreshing - an important voice in contemporary British fiction * Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People *I loved every shining moment. In this radiant, deeply felt novel, Michael Donkor offers us the complexities of modern life - messy love, aching loss, our capacity for forgiveness, dignity and self-acceptance - with all the grace and fluent clarity of a singular, open-hearted storyteller * Guy Gunaratne, author of In This Mad and Furious City *A refreshing and beautifully observed queer narrative that centres someone who is, like many of us, simply seeking joy in a world we are not responsible for * Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk *Donkor is a real talent * Sarah Winman, author of Still Life *His work has an immediacy and a warmth to it and his is a world you want to enter * Jackie Kay, Ten most important BAME writers working in the UK today *Donkor is a master-weaver, threading together a story rich in layers and nuance. The characters are bursting out of their restraints to find what truly suits them. Beautiful, generous story-telling, compelling characters and so much delicious depth * Olumide Popoola, author of When We Speak of Nothing *Elegant … An author confident of his storytelling skills, and rightly so * The i *An elegant coming-of-age tale about confronting the ghosts of our childhood, queer love and finding the courage to live a bigger and better life for ourselves * The i, Best New Books to Read in March *Donkor revels in the detail of everyday life in this languorous coming-of-age novel … Donkor both rejects many of the knee-jerk pieties about race while lending his story an easy, conversational intimacy. A novel that glows with the ache of being alive * Daily Mail *Deftly interweaving the stories of two big reckonings in Kwame’s life – first as a 10-year-old and again two decades later – this coming of age tale about queer love and the ghosts of our past deserves to be treasured widely * inews, The 14 most underrated books of 2024 *

Michael Donkor was born in London to Ghanaian parents. He studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, followed by a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway. His first novel, Hold, was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas and shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prizes. He is a frequent contributor to outlets including the Guardian, the TLS and the Independent.