The Message

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

With his bestseller, Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates established himself as a unique voice in his generation of American authors; a brilliant writer and thinker in the tradition of James Baldwin.

In his keenly anticipated new book, The Message, he explores the urgent question of how our stories – our reporting, imaginative narratives and mythmaking – both expose and distort our realities. Travelling to three resonant sites of conflict, he illuminates how the stories we tell – as well as the ones we don’t – work to shape us.

The first of the book’s three main parts finds Coates on his inaugural trip to Africa – a journey to Dakar, where he finds himself in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and the ghost-haunted country of his imagination. He then takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on the banning of his own work and the deep roots of a false and fiercely protected American mythology – visibly on display in this capital of the confederacy, with statues of segregationists still looming over its public squares. Finally in Palestine, Coates sees with devastating clarity the tragedy that grows in the clash between the stories we tell and reality 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.

© Ta-Nehisi Coates 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics 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. Having lived the life of the famous Black writer in mostly white professional spaces, someone who has been both venerated and vilified, he finds in his new community “the warmth of solidarity.” Instead of being the singular voice or the incomparable expert, Coates offers himself as an ally
New York Times
Ta-Nehisi Coates roams from Senegal to Palestine to South Carolina in these candid essays unified by his belief that, as stories shape us, journalism should reflect the world, warts and all
Observer
Coates makes a compelling argument for why we need to educate ourselves, seek clarity and not lose our morals. He urges us to have tough conversations, question what we read and understand the power of writing in politics. At a time when it feels as if the truth is under attack from all sides, The Message is a thought-provoking wake-up call and a must-read
The Scotsman
Ever since his Baldwin-inflected Between the World and Me, Coates has been known for his incisive (and sometimes uncomfortable) cultural and political commentary. Here he journeys from West Africa to the American South to Palestine to examine how the stories we tell can fail us, and to argue that only the truth can bring justice
The Boston Globe
There are few, true, public intellectuals anymore. But Ta-Nehisi Coates is unquestionably foremost amongst them. His new book, The Message, is a sweeping exploration of how stories shape our politics
Novara Media
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys . . . Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual
Kirkus (starred review)
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
Brilliant and timely . . . Coates presents three blazing essays on race, moral complicity, and a storyteller’s responsibility to the truth. . . . 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
Booklist (starred review)
Coats always writes with purpose . . . These pilgrimages for him, ground his powerful writing about race
Associated Press
In a series of three sweeping essays that take readers through Senegal, South Carolina, Palestine, and Israel, acclaimed social writer Ta-Nehisi Coates examines the myths that animate and guide us—often at the expense of the truth. The Message marks Coates’ first non-fiction book in nearly a decade, and it arrives at a critical flashpoint in our increasingly globalized society
Harper’s Bazaar

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