The Message

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins

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

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

A Necessary Read

Coates’s ability to create a narrative that provokes thought remains as phenomenal and powerful as it has always been.

The most powerful thing you'll read this year.

What a painful, bitter and sweet journey it was to sit and listen to this writer share his heart and insights. Don't just put this book on your to be read list, read it write now.

Spot on!

Leave it to Ta-Nehisi Coates to go into a country for one reason, observe the obvious, and then tell us about it in a way only he can. His understanding of humanity is insightful and as always, his words are poetic. Everyone should read this book, full stop!

such an important read

The truth and clarity in these terrible times is so necessary for anyone who cares about anything

Beautifully written

Coates’ journey of growth and understanding was relatable and moving.
I’m not one for flowery prose, but in this particular book, it felt very fitting and added to beauty of the journey Coates describes.

a powerful book

A beautifully written book that takes you on a journey to connect racism with simufferings. It makes you yearn for justice.

A national treasure speaks

Professor Coats powerful clear testimony, once again, proves he is one of the most, if not thee most, important voices in a generation.

A timely, fresh, open perspective on an old story.

Ta-Nehisi Coates openly shares deeply personal thoughts, some long yield, some brand new, around oppression and writing to make things plain for the reader as he sees it. I learned a lot! What's more, I'm inspired to continue my own journey.

The humanity and thouroughness

Left wit no actual ideas in how to move forward. I remain intuitively against reparations as anything other than a concept.
Great writer kept me listening throughout

Every word is a jewel

An incredible book. Urgent necessary listening for everyone who cares about learning, empathy and challenging ideas.