The Message

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates

#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.

Coates is our Baldwin, our DuBois, our Douglass

Incredibly incisive and vital clarification of the horrors we are witnessing. The world made legible. I only wish I could have read it sooner and avoided decades of shameful ignorance.

Read this book

Everyone should read this book. It is a beautiful plea to see the humanity within all of us, and to uplift the voices of the silenced.

Once I was blind...

Yes, I have to agree with Mr. Coates when he mentioned that his view (i.e., and many Americans view) of the Palestinian people was one sided. I too, let my views of the Palestinians people be created by what I saw on American television. Now I am curious. I would like to experience that part of the world for myself. Currently, Mr. Coates is receiving the a tremendous amount, a blowback because of his journalistic point-of-view and reporting on what he saw & experienced in Israel and Palestine. I encourage readers to
investigate for themselves. And to compliment your education by watching the Trevor Noah's interview of Mr. Coates for his podcast. Yes, it's on YouTube. In this current climate of political unrest, stress, high tension and YES, frustration in America. I am proud that Mr. Coates took the time to investigate, research and then write a book about his and firsthand experiences. The Message is a powerful, and thought provoking book. Once I was blind, but now I see. Well done!

Pro Truth. Pro Justice

Giving a voice to those that don’t have one.

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
Malcolm X

Required Reading

I’ll be thinking about the message in this book for a long time, probably forever. Thank you Ta-Nehisi Coates for writing stories we all need to hear and paving the way for others to tell their stories.