The Water Dancer

"The Water Dancer is beautiful and captivating. It starts as a story about Hiram, an enslaved man with a mysterious gift who is forced to serve his white half-brother. It becomes an expansive adventure story about organizing and traversing the Underground Railroad through a series of supernatural search-and-rescue missions. In a Fresh Air interview, Ta-Nehisi Coates explains that, in his research for the book, he found “magic is often very much a part” of the way African Americans described their escape from slavery. The Water Dancer, he says, “tries to take a somewhat forgotten tradition in African American resistance and render it seriously.”"

"He is an amazing writer; I feel like I'm right there in it with him. I want to feel that way the moment I open a book."