There is a scene halfway through Caleb Azumah Nelson’s latest novel, Small Worlds, where the protagonist Stephen — a teenage second-generation migrant of Ghanaian parents — visits his family friend Auntie Yaa’s local Afro-Caribbean food shop. As he rounds the corner of Peckham High Street, he finds the shutters down, a padlock affixed to the door. “Rent raised,” Stephen’s older brother Ray later explains to him. “Doubled. Tripled. Auntie’s shop is done.”
When I meet Nelson on a bright morning in a cafe on Peckham’s vibrant Rye Lane, I can’t help but think that it is exactly the kind of place that might have replaced Auntie Yaa’s. Esoteric variations of coffee beans and organic milks line the walls, light bouncing off the minimalist white and ecru interiors. We are surrounded by a frankly startling amount of Fisherman beanies.
