“In his latest book, The Message (One World), Ta-Nehisi Coates lyrically evokes the craft of writing and the ways stories shape and distort our reality. These are discussed through accounts of his visits to the island of Gorée in Senegal, South Carolina and occupied Palestine and Israel, where he connects the erasure and oppression of the Palestinians with the legacies of racism, slavery and colonialism. Coates refuses to make excuses for injustice and barbarity, and his historical perspective and universal humanism are compelling.

I would also mention two other books: Nat Turner, Black Prophet (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by the late Anthony E. Kaye with Gregory Downs is a magnificent reconstruction of the leader of the 1831 slave rebellion as a biblical warrior, framing his thoughts and actions in a distinct Black Christian evangelical tradition. And Marlene L. Daut’s The First and Last King of Haiti (Knopf) is an impressively researched biography of Henry Christophe, a former lieutenant of Toussaint Louverture’s who became one of the leaders of post-revolutionary Haiti.”

- SUDHIR HAZAREESINGH