| Author | Ta-Nehisi Coates |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publication date | September 24, 2019 |
| Pages | 416 |
| Rating | Click to rate this post! [Total: 1 Average: 5] |
The Water Dancer is a 2019 novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It is his first novel and was published on September 24, 2019, by One World, an impression of Random House. It is a surreal story set in the South before the Civil War, which deals with a superhuman protagonist named Hiram Walker who has a photographic memory, but cannot remember his mother and is able to transport people over long distances using known power. like “driving.” “It can fold the Earth-like fabric and allows it to travel across large areas through waterways.
The novel debuted at number one on the New York Times fiction bestseller list and was selected for the revival of Oprah’s Book Club.
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The Water Dancer Summary
Hiram Walker was born into slavery during the Antebellum South in a declining tobacco plantation in Virginia called Lockless. He is the mixed-race son of the owner of a white plantation and a black mother who was sold by his father when Hiram was young. The local community is made up of the enslaved (“those in charge”); the landowners (“Quality”); and the low-class whites. Hiram has an extraordinary photographic memory but cannot remember his mother. However, when Hiram is crossing a bridge, he suddenly sees his mother dancing. When the vision ends, your car has fallen into the water. His brother drowns, but Hiram is transported out of the water. He learns that his miraculous survival was the result of a superhuman ability that he called driving, which transports himself and others over impossible distances. This driving is caused by powerful memories: those of his mother. Finally, he gets involved with the underground railway. Hiram escapes to Philadelphia, where he meets Box Brown and Jarm Logue. Finally, he comes to meet a famous member of the subway called Moses, who also has the power of driving. It is later revealed that Moses is Harriet Tubman.
The Water Dancer Review
Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of one of the most important nonfiction books of this decade, Between the World and Me, which means that his fiction debut comes well in advance. Would the urgency of his nonfiction writing appear in a novel? Would you be so agile in an invented world? It would that be good? The answer to all these questions is a resounding yes. Coates’ novel is the story of Hiram Walker, who was born into slavery in a Virginia plantation that is owned by his white father and is experiencing a slow decline. Although Hiram is endowed with a photographic memory, his mother, who was sold when he was young, is the only thing he can’t remember. In fact, many of the women in his life are removed too soon, a fact that will guide his actions later in the novel. History combines the brutality of history with more imaginative elements: for example, whites are called Quality, blacks are called Task, and Hiram possesses powers that fall in the spectrum of magical realism. As the novel moves to the north of Philadelphia, where Hiram grows begins to work for the subway, and finally returns to his birthplace in the south, the fantastic elements only give the story greater power. The Water Dancer is an exciting debut, and Coates is the novelist we expected it to be.
The Water Dancer Background
Coates began writing the novel around 2008 and 2009. He had recently finished his first memoir, The Beautiful Struggle, and his agent encouraged him to write fiction. At the time, Coates extensively researched slavery and the Civil War. He was influenced by author E. L. Doctorow and “how he almost reinvented history; he made history his own in a certain way.” Coates cited the Doctorow novels Ragtime (1975) and Billy Bathgate (1989) as early influences and recalled later reading The Waterworks. He was also influenced by his childhood love for comics and the concept of heroes in general. While researching the Civil War, he was frustrated by the fact that “many of the people who were deemed heroic were in fact, white supremacists.” Coates worked on the novel for a decade in “various degrees.”
About the author Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and author of the No. 1 sales success of the New York Times Between the World and Me, a finalist for the National Book Award. Coates, a MacArthur member “Genius Grant”, received the National Magazine Award, the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, and the George Polk Award for his cover story in Atlantic “The Case for Reparations.” He lives in New York with his wife and son.
The Water Dancer PDF
