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The Message

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Publisher's summary

#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)

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 listeners 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.

©2024 Ta-Nehisi Coates (P)2024 Random House Audio
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Interview: Ta-Nehisi Coates to writers around the world: We need you

'The message of The Message is that writing changes the world, but it's also that we need you.'
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  • The Message
  • 'The message of The Message is that writing changes the world, but it's also that we need you.'

Critic reviews

Searching and restless, The Message is filled with startling revelations that show a writer grappling with how his work fits into history and the present moment. These masterful essays will leave readers convinced that Coates is up to the task.”—BookPage, starred review

The Message charts Coates’s re-entry as a public intellectual . . . The rolling, elegiac cadences of much of his earlier work have yielded to a fury that’s harder edged. But a sense of shock also seems to have elicited in Coates a sense of possibility . . . [Coates] is using his position of prominence and moral authority to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians.”The New York Times Book Review

“Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose, so naming his latest collection The Message is nothing if not on-brand. But what’s the actual message? Consisting of three pieces of non-fiction, the book is part memoir, part travelogue, and part writing primer . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.”Associated Press

“An earnest and intimate exploration of locations of extreme injustice, and of the power of writing to render a more compassionate—and more honest—future . . . At once a rallying cry and a love letter to writing itself, the book is an urgent reminder that ‘politics is the art of the possible, but art creates the possible of politics.’”Oprah Daily

What listeners say about The Message

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brilliant, pithy, the hu

coates is piercing, thoughtful, human, and well-researched and reported novel beautifully written, thought inspiring, and spans historical contexts across cultures from Senegal to US to Egypt to Israel to Palestine to Liberia. he explores how othering dehumanizes and speaks to the humiliation of having been oppressed.

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Detailed description of the perfect apartheid

Always look forward to the authors work.

Very detailed and meticulous. Breaks down his experiences and understanding of the world from afar but travels to many locations to build on a better understanding.

When the author draws attention took to historical events or pivots he brings facts and clarity.

One of which was Isreal’s support of South Africa apartheid and remained a staunch supporter of it until the final days.

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Listen to this now

If you think Palestine is complicated, listen to this so you understand what you need to know.

This isn’t politics, it is humanity, seeing the truth of what is happening must be the start.

Whether you believe it is still justified is up to you, but at least let Ta-Nahesi take off the blinders in the most compelling summary I have heard.

Told from the perspective of one who has experienced oppression but is now part of the oppressing power (America). Listening, you feel the shame of having failed to see sooner and immediately want to challenge the story that tells us one racial cleansing justifies another.

I know Arabs personally - so I have a direct experience of how absurd the idea of their “barbarism” is. It was shocking to hear how it was used to justify their elimination.

I was also shocked to learn that Israel was one of the arms dealers to South Africa during apartheid.

It is such a sad story, it is so hard to hear.

But we must! Lazim!

We must try to avoid creating a never ending circle of retribution that is paid forward to the next vulnerable group - or none of us will ever be at peace.

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Pen is Mightier than the sword

The world has shrunk in this Age of Information.
The Truth has come and falsehoods are departing. Indeed falsehood is always dying for those who seek truth.

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Remarkably Refreshing and Powerful

This book, this open letter to America and beyond is a must read. A testimony to vulnerability and accountability. Each word rises from the page and lands beautifully in the heart and mind.

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A uniquely black story that doesn't hold back.

An amazing perspective brought to life in a way that I think everyone can understand. He doesn't hold back and clearly looked to elevate the conversation around Israels occupation of Palastine.

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Truth

Broad and fearless examination of oppression. I hope everyone will listen. There is hope for a better world.

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Read the book!! Balanced, Thought provoking! Come to your own conclusions!

Coates weaves a lesson for journalist & all of us based on his travels to Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine, about the universality of oppression based on the need to justify the actions.

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A New World Opens

I love how unafraid this book is to say the hard things. I had always feared this story was too complex for me to understand. Coates embraces that fear and determines himself to conquering it. He describes himself as being on a journey, and I was privileged to go along with him.

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Must read

Extremely well written. Made me feel like i was on the journey with him and got me thinking about things i would have never considered on my own.

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