That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu has won the £10,000 (about $12,485) 2020 Desmond Elliott Prize for the year's best debut novel, the Guardian reported. It called the book a "semi-autobiographical novel [that] follows a British-Ghanaian boy, K, as he passes through different foster homes. It explores identity, sexuality, mental health and abuse as K moves from the Suffolk countryside to inner-city London. Owusu began writing it while he was in a mental health facility, creating the character of K to help him understand the breakdown he was going through."
Chair of judges Preti Taneja said that That Reminds Me was "written with a rare style that wrings pure beauty from every painful, absurd moment K must face. Despite the terrors around him, this young black man has an instinctive love for the world which burns at the core of the book. The judges and I were as shattered by the truths of the story as we were moved by the talent of its writer. Derek Owusu has given us a unique, profound and transcendent work of literature: we want as many readers as possible to discover it--once they do they will return to it again and again."