The Message

Reviews

The Message charts Coates’s re-entry as a public intellectual . . . The rolling, elegiac cadences of much of his earlier work have yielded to a fury that’s harder edged. But a sense of shock also seems to have elicited in Coates a sense of possibility . . . [Coates] is using his position of prominence and moral authority to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians. Having lived the life of the famous Black writer in mostly white professional spaces, someone who has been both venerated and vilified, he finds in his new community “the warmth of solidarity.” Instead of being the singular voice or the incomparable expert, Coates offers himself as an ally A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys . . . Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual 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 [A]n 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 Brilliant and timely . . . Coates presents three blazing essays on race, moral complicity, and a storyteller’s responsibility to the truth. . . . Coates exhorts readers, including students, parents, educators, and journalists, to challenge conventional narratives that can be used to justify ethnic cleansing or camouflage racist policing In a series of three sweeping essays that take readers through Senegal, South Carolina, Palestine, and Israel, acclaimed social writer Ta-Nehisi Coates examines the myths that animate and guide us—often at the expense of the truth. The Message marks Coates’ first non-fiction book in nearly a decade, and it arrives at a critical flashpoint in our increasingly globalized society Expand reviews