The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I realised yesterday that so far I have posted books by four white men, so today with everything happening in the world I deliberately choose a book by an African-american.

Ta-Nehisi writes Black Panther and Captain America for Marvel comics at the moment. That’s where I first encountered him. He has also been a journalist and has written several non-fiction books.

This is his first fiction book, the story of a man who has a photographic memory but no memory of his mother. He grows up on a plantation pre-civil war, and is property. His people are known as ‘the tasked’ and the story considerately shows the humanity and the horrific travesties that are inflicted on them, by the white ‘quality’. He also has some extra abilities, but I wont spoil them here.

There is much in the story that is horrific, but the story is told poetically. I enjoyed Ta-Nehesi’s Captain America run and I am so glad I read this because he is a powerful storyteller.

I listened to the Audiobook version, which is read by an incredible actor called Joe Morton. He was Miles Bennet Dyson in T2, and has been a supporting actor in many other movies. His performance here is sublime. I listened to the book on the way to and from work back in January, usually with darkness outside.

If you haven’t heard of Ta-Nehisi before please give this a try