The Message

Ta-Nehisi Coates initially set out to write a book about writing, but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our narratives and mythological creations expose and distort reality. In three interconnected essays, the author thus takes us on an overwhelming geographical and ideological journey.
In Dakar, Senegal, Coates confronts the African continent, dividing his attention between the modernity of the city and the mythical realm of the Afrocentric dream he inherited in childhood. 

In Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America, he explores the 2020 "racial reckoning" and the strong conservative reaction in a capital of the former confederation, where segregationist statues still mark the public space.
Finally, in Palestine, the author discovers the devastating gap between Western narratives and the harsh reality of life on the ground, traveling to Jerusalem and the occupied territories to expose what national myths try to hide.

Written at a time of enormous global tension, this essential work addresses the urgent need to free ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape the world, as well as our own souls, in order to embrace the liberating power of the hardest truths.
"Being simultaneously a cry of revolt and a love letter to writing itself, this book is an urgent reminder that “politics is the art of the possible, but art creates the possible of politics.”"
Oprah Daily