The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them

The Strangers (2024) is a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, a richly imaginative and powerfully empathetic portrait of five remarkable Black men, and a meditation on race, estrangement, and the search for home. It is luminous and extraordinary, referencing for years to come. Ekow Eshun tells their stories with breathtaking lyricism and empathy, capturing both the hostility and beauty they experienced in the world and locating them within a wider landscape of Black art, culture, history, and politics. He maps its thematic contours and fault lines, uncovering traces of the monstrous and the fantastic, of exile and escape, of conflict and vulnerability, and of the totemic central figure of the stranger.

Format: Hardback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 19 September 2024
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2024, "The Strangers" is a captivating and genre-defying novel that offers an intimate portrait of five remarkable Black men and a meditation on race, estrangement, and the search for home. Bernardine Evaristo describes it as "thrilling and ingenious, propulsive and genre-defying," while Lemn Sissay praises its "luminous and extraordinary" quality. The book explores the experience of being a Black man in the western imagination, where they are often seen as strangers, outsiders, and intruders. Ekow Eshun brings these men to life through their stories, capturing both the hostility and beauty they experienced in the world. He places them within a broader landscape of Black art, culture, history, and politics, tracing the thematic contours and fault lines of this landscape. The novel reveals traces of the monstrous and the fantastic, of exile and escape, of conflict and vulnerability, and of the totemic central figure of the stran.

Weight: 614g
Dimension: 241 x 165 x 39 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780241472026