THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe renowned author returns with a timely book about his journeys to three sites of conflict - Dakar, South Carolina, and Palestine - exploring how the stories we tell, and the ones we don't, shape our realities. 'A politically-charged meditation on the power of stories' Guardian ***Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, but soon found himself grappling with deeper questions about the destructive myths that shape our world. First we join Coates on his inaugural trip to Africa - a journey to Dakar, where he finds himself in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and the ghost-haunted country of his imagination. He then takes readers to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on the banning of his own work and the deep roots of a false and fiercely protected American mythology - visibly on display in its segregationist statues. Finally in Palestine, Coates sees with devastating clarity the tragedy that grows in the clash between the stories we tell and reality on the ground. Written at a dramatic moment in American and global history, this work from one of our most important writers is about the urgent need to embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths. ***'An earnest and intimate exploration of locations of extreme injustice' Oprah Daily
Biografie
Ta-Nehisi Coates, geboren 1975 in Baltimore, ist einer der angesehensten Intellektuellen der USA. Mit seinem Essay Plädoyer für Reparationen stieß er eine landesweite Diskussion zur Aufarbeitung der Sklaverei an. Zwischen mir und der Welt, für das er 2015 den National Book Award erhielt, ist in den USA eines der meistverkauften Bücher der vergangenen Jahre. In seinem Essay We Were Eight Years In Power. Eine amerikanische Tragödie (2017) stellte Coates die These auf, dass es sich bei Donald Trump um den ersten weißen Präsidenten der USA handele, da seine ganze Politik in klarer Abgrenzung zu Obama stehe. Coates schreibt regelmäßig für The Atlantic, größtenteils zum Thema struktureller Rassismus und »White Supremacy«. Der Wassertänzer ist sein erster Roman. Er lebt mit seiner Familie in New York.