The message
(Book)

Book Cover
Average Rating
Published
New York : One World, [2024].
Status

Description

Loading Description...

Copies

LocationCall NumberStatusDue Date
Central Library - New Biographies - New BooksB Coates, T.On Hold Shelf
East Side Library - New Biographies - New BooksB Coates, T.On Hold Shelf
Forest Ave. Library - New Biographies - New BooksB Coates, T.In Transit
Franklin Ave. Library - New Biographies - New BooksB Coates, T.In Transit
North Side Library - New Biographies - New BooksB Coates, T.Checked OutNovember 22, 2024
Show All Copies

About the Author, Reviews, Awards, and More

More Details

Published
New York : One World, [2024].
Format
Book
Physical Desc
235 pages ; 20 cm
Language
English

Notes

Description
"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 -- and named for Nubian pharaoh -- Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the "steampunk" city of "old traditions and new machinery," meeting with strangers and dining with local writers who quiz him in French about African American politics. 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, the pan-African homeland he was raised to believe was the origin and destiny for all black people. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and touches the ocean that carried his ancestors away in chains -- 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 2020. 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"--,Provided by publisher.

Series, Readalikes, and More

Other Editions and Formats

Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Coates, T. (2024). The message (First edition.). One World.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. 2024. The Message. One World.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. The Message One World, 2024.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. The Message First edition., One World, 2024.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

Staff View

Loading Staff View.