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The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me travels the world to explore how the stories we tell — and the ones we don't — shape our realities.
Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set off to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell's classic
Politics and the English Language, but found himself grappling
with deeper questions about how our stories — our reporting and
imaginative narratives and mythmaking — expose and distort our realities.
The first of the book's three intertwining essays is set in
Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates
had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the
"steampunk" city of "old traditions and new machinery," but everywhere
he goes he feels as if he's in two places at once: a modern city in
Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the
slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of
the Afrocentric dream.
Back in the USA he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he explores a different mythology, this one enforced on its subjects by the state. He enters the world of the teacher whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates's own books and discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed and even radicalized by the stories they discovered in the "racial reckoning" of 2020o. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths and stories of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over the its public squares.
In Palestine, the longest of the essays, he discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we've accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians--the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him--and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this
work from one of the country's most important writers is about the
urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths
that shape our world — and our own souls — and embrace the liberating
power of even the most difficult truths.
Review
“An earnest and intimate exploration of locations of extreme injustice, and of the power of writing to render a more compassionate—and more honest—future . . . At once a rallying cry and a love letter to writing itself, the book is an urgent reminder that ‘politics is the art of the possible, but art creates the possible of politics.’”—Oprah Daily
“Ever since his Baldwin-inflected Between the World and Me, Coates has been known for his incisive (and sometimes uncomfortable) cultural and political commentary. Here he journeys from West Africa to the American South to Palestine to examine how the stories we tell can fail us, and to argue that only the truth can bring justice.”—The Boston Globe
“Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates returns with a powerful critique on modern American society. With his signature incisiveness, Coates interrogates the intersections of race, power, and identity while blending historical insight and personal reflection. Through three essays, Coates presents a global perspective that challenges the status quo and dares us to envision a more just future.”—SheReads
About the Author
Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of
The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer, and
Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in
2015. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Ta-Nehisi lives in
New York City with his wife and son.