English language
Published Oct. 7, 2024 by Diversified Publishing.
Coates does a great job of entering the idea of a false history, one that we often adopt cause we do not have the chance the challenge but then confronting it as a setup to how Palestine is presented to us and what it is actually like on the ground. The experience in the book is before Oct 7th as a date indicator.
For me, the last section of The Message was the most impactful. I am so grateful that Coates returned to “the Palestine question” here and treated it with the care and respect it deserves. It’s refreshing to see a celebrated author admit that he got something wrong.
A powerful set of first person essays on injustice that serve to emphasize the parallels - and hard links of funding and culture - between systemic racism in America and in Israel. Its point is not to provide a comprehensive overview of the problem, but to shine a light through a particular lens into it. The result is compelling and tragic. A portrait of occupation and oppression which is easier to overlook than face.
I came here off the back of that CBS interview, but was surprised to see how the book went. It's really three quite separate essays, held together by a common theme of the stories we tell ourselves, and how important writing and story telling are. The third essay has obviously attracted the most attention and, while it's definitely thought-provoking, I think it really suffers from being too short -- perhaps it should have been a book on its own? One of the principal points of the essay is that we really need more Palestinian voices in the media. The stories we're told matter as they construct our reality.
I came here off the back of that CBS interview, but was surprised to see how the book went. It's really three quite separate essays, held together by a common theme of the stories we tell ourselves, and how important writing and story telling are. The third essay has obviously attracted the most attention and, while it's definitely thought-provoking, I think it really suffers from being too short -- perhaps it should have been a book on its own? One of the principal points of the essay is that we really need more Palestinian voices in the media. The stories we're told matter as they construct our reality.
