#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • From the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom.“This potent book about America’s most disgraceful sin establishes [Ta-Nehisi Coates] as a first-rate novelist.”—San Francisco ChronicleIN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR … Francisco Chronicle
IN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Adapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films
NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • Vanity Fair • Esquire • Good Housekeeping • Paste • Town & Country • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal
Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known.
So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.
This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.
Praise for The Water Dancer
“Ta-Nehisi Coates is the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race with his 2015 memoir, Between the World and Me. So naturally his debut novel comes with slightly unrealistic expectations—and then proceeds to exceed them. The Water Dancer . . . is a work of both staggering imagination and rich historical significance. . . . What’s most powerful is the way Coates enlists his notions of the fantastic, as well as his fluid prose, to probe a wound that never seems to heal. . . . Timeless and instantly canon-worthy.”—Rolling Stone
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Shared an otherworldly dimensions to the Underground Railroad and individuals both real and imagined who participated as agents/associates/ and passengers.
Didn’t care for it.
I’ve read and listened to this 6 times already! All I can say is its a wonderful multi-layered read!!
Ta Nehisi Coates is a fabulous writer, and I was drawn through The Water Dancer quickly. His characters were believable and complex, and he shed an original light on the operation of the Underground Railway. I wasn’t entirely convinced by the magical realism aspect, but I was willing to go along with it because of the characters and the voice. I definitely recommend reading it.
In this debut novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates, memory and legacy—assets stolen from the enslaved—take on a transfiguring, transporting power and become the keys to the protagonist’s freedom.
Coates tells a gripping story, with well-crafted characters who embody the heroism and warmth, as well as the cruelty, of which humanity is capable and reflect the moral complexities of the age. His prose flows beautifully. Coates has a way of cutting right to the center of an idea and devastating the reader in only a handful of words.
one of the best reads ever
In 2020 I was hard-pressed to read a book about slavery because it’s legacy offers so much present-day drama. This book doesn’t really add much to the slave narrative although one major plot turn is definitely unique. I read an online review which stated this book’s most interesting premise takes too long to be revealed and I agree. I would have preferred receiving a plot twist spoiler so I could ruminate on all it implies. Instead I forced myself to read this to the end and the payoff was marginal.
This story told from the view point of a slave brings to light many of the realities of the slaves, especially the emotional realities that we tend to overlook.
Excellent read of the real underground railroad.
Hiram Walker was born a slave, the son of the plantation owner, and far brighter and more capable than the owner’s legitimate son. But the Virginia soil is exhausted, and many owners are taking their possessions (including humans) to more fertile lands west in Kentucky and Tennessee, and economically the Walker plantation is in decline. In that background, we learn that Hiram’s mother was sold elsewhere, and other ancestors have disappeared, some hopefully to the mysterious, free north. This book follows in the footsteps of Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, by recounting the desperation, despair, and hope for a better life that drove many slaves to attempt the high-risk escape north. The unique aspect of this book focuses on the utter destruction of family that the slave system imposed, and gives a glimpse of what it must have been like to have had no rights whatsoever, not even the right of basic kindness. A beautifully written book that stayed with me long after I had finished it.
This is the author’s first fiction work, and it packs a wallop. Prior to writing the novel, Mr. Coates, a well-known and respected journalist, researched slavery for a decade. He incorporated what he learned into the story of “Tasker”—the term Coates uses in place of “slave”—Hiram Walker’s journey through as a Tasker, with an intriguing dose of magical realism. As a reader, I was right there, and what a read. I learned a ton! This is a story that will stay with you for a long time.
Great read, excellent story great novel.