INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021 AN AUDIBLE, AUDIOFILE, AND WASHINGTON POST BEST AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB SELECTION LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION A FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE A New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year A Time Must-Read Book of the Year A Washington Post 10 Best Books of the Year A Oprah Daily Top 20 Books of the Year A People 10 Best Books of the Year A Boston Globe Best Book of 2021 A BookPage Best Fiction Book of the Year A Booklist 10 Best First Novels of the Year A Kirkus 100 Best Novels of the Year An Atlanta Journal-Constitution 10 Best Southern Books of 2021 A Parade Pick A Chicago Public Library Top 10 Best Books of the Year A KCRW Top 10 Books of 2021 An Instant Washington Post, USA Today, and Indie Bestseller "Epic ... I was just enraptured by the lineage and the story of this modern African-American family ... A combination of historical and modern story—I've never read anything quite like it. It just consumed me." —Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Book Club Pick An Indie Next Pick A New York Times Book Everyone Will Be Talking About A People 5 Best Books of the Summer A Good Morning America 15 Summer Book Club Picks An Essence Best Book of the Summer A Washington Post 10 Books of the Month A CNN Best Book of the Month A Time 11 Best Books of the Month A Ms. Most Anticipated Book of the Year A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book of the Year A BookPage Writer to Watch A USA Today Book Not to Miss A Chicago Tribune Summer Must-Read An Observer Best Summer Book A Millions Most Anticipated Book A Ms. Book of the Month A Well-Read Black Girl Book Club Pick A BiblioLifestyle Most Anticipated Literary Book of the Summer A Deep South Best Book of the Summer Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award The 2020 NAACP Image Award-winning poet makes her fiction debut with this National Book Award-longlisted, magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era. The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called "Double Consciousness," a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois's words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois's Problem on her shoulders. Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that's made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of ...