The Message
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.
“Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.”—Associated Press
“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. Brilliant and timely.”—Booklist (starred review)
FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Vanity Fair, Town & Country, Electric Lit
Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out 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.
In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.
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 myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.
“Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.”—Associated Press
“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. Brilliant and timely.”—Booklist (starred review)
FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Vanity Fair, Town & Country, Electric Lit
Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out 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.
In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.
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 myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.
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Community Reviews
Thought provoking book. I especially appreciated the final section on Palestine, both for the honest accounting of the genocide and his own personal growth of once invoking Israel in his case for reparations for Black Americans.
It is a bit surreal reading it, though, when he references the Trump admin as something done and to be corrected. I hope Coates revisits these places (Palestine notwithstanding) now that there is a second admin and foreign relations are tanking.
I was blown away by this book. The depth of his thinking about race has layers and nuance. He speaks about several cultures and how the complexities of oppression impact those communities. His language is so rich. There is a reason his works have received so many accolades.
Coates writes so beautifully while he reveals long denied truths. Truths so many will not see and truths so many benefit from hiding. This book opened my eyes to a completely new view of apartheid, reparations, and even American “ideals.” Brilliant, heartbreaking, and altering.
In The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates delivers a searing narrative that brings forward perspectives rarely acknowledged, let alone amplified, in Western media. These are not just the voices that history has overlooked—they are the lives that have been systematically erased. Coates crafts a profoundly empathetic portrayal of regular people caught in the crossfire of political ambition and capitalist greed, transforming them from faceless statistics into deeply human stories that resonate with pain, hope, and resilience.
What makes The Message so extraordinary is its insistence on centering the ordinary. Coates resists the grand narratives of heroism and villainy often used to simplify complex conflicts, choosing instead to highlight the unvarnished humanity of those who become collateral in destructive games of power. Through this lens, the book dismantles the reader's detachment, forcing us to reckon with the cost of systems we might unknowingly perpetuate. It’s a sobering, heart-wrenching, and necessary call to action that leaves an indelible mark.
what a thought-provoking, important read. his commentary on all areas addressed is both humbling and refreshing and as always he's a fantastic writer. still digesting everything i just read.
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