The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)

A Novel

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Narrated by: Joe Morton

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • From the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom.

“This potent book about America’s most disgraceful sin establishes [Ta-Nehisi Coates] as a first-rate novelist.”—San Francisco Chronicle

IN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Adapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, directed by Nia DaCosta, and produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films

NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • Vanity Fair • Esquire • Good Housekeeping • Paste • Town & Country • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known.

So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer isa propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.

Praise for The Water Dancer

“Ta-Nehisi Coates is the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race with his 2015 memoir, Between the World and Me. So naturally his debut novel comes with slightly unrealistic expectations—and then proceeds to exceed them. The Water Dancer . . . is a work of both staggering imagination and rich historical significance. . . . What’s most powerful is the way Coates enlists his notions of the fantastic, as well as his fluid prose, to probe a wound that never seems to heal. . . . Timeless and instantly canon-worthy.”—Rolling Stone

Well crafted, historically important, and relevant.

Similar to the visual, emotional, and colorful kaleidoscope of vibrant effects achieved by Salinger, Steinbeck, and Hemingway, Coates magically transports the reader back to a time and secretive place of pre Emancipation Proclamation colonial shame. As the layers of this profoundly disturbing period in U.S. history are revealed, Coates reverently maintains balance between revealing truths without flooding the reader with devastation and heartbreak by justly displaying the beauty, pristine spirit and the physical, emotional, and intellectual strengths of the American slave, thus creating intrigue, not shun or recoil. While Coates masterfully creates a portrait of historical significance that can seem to some as long ago and removed from contemporary sight, he successfully illustrates how the reverberations of slavery are relevant today, gently revealing that this story is not historical at all. It is now. The Water Dancer will undoubtably join the ranks with all the other works of great American literature.

An Exceptional Book

Exceptional in every way—story, narration/performance, even better than I expected. A “must read” story of slavery, including some cold, hard truths that are often glossed over in other books and settings. The writer and the narrator take the “reader” along for the journey and truly make you feel as though you are right there with the characters. An incredible book, and an exceptional performance. Highly recommended. 5 stars all around

WOW!

Beautiful, moving, scary at times- this book has changed me. This is one of those book that changes people. Ta-Nehisi Coates transports you to another time and even gives a glimpse of another, more ethereal realm. I absolutely loved it. Thank you Joe Morton for the beautiful narration.

Incredible Work of Art AND History!

Sad that it took til now for a book this powerful to be written for all to see the world as it was. The perspective is so unique and so important that school kids will be reading this for generations without a doubt. The Professor slips in history seamlessly and uses language that allows one to feel the violence and injustice in our bones using only as much pain as one can handle, and using some magic to convey and remind of the sweet culture that remains from the old continent and the powerful points of pride where they are. Its aweful yet readable and deep. The characters are so real-the actor reading the parts is awesome, adds so much to the telling! The only thing is that the writing and acting if the women’s parts seems less credible. But I am blown away. Please write more!!!

Exceptional and moving to my core

One of the most engaging, hard, meaningful stories I have ever had the privilege of listening too. Thank you.