Robert Jones Jr. has just published his stunning debut novel The Prophets to enormous critical acclaim. He was born and raised in New York City. He has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Essence, OkayAfrica, The Feminist Wire, and The Grio. He is the creator of the social justice social media community Son of Baldwin.
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Here’s something of what Robert Jones Jr has to say himself about his novel, which revolves around a story of forbidden love between two enslaved young men on a Mississippi plantation and a betrayal that threatens their existence:
Love, in all of its permutations, is the discovery at the heart of The Prophets: hard or soft; withheld or freely given; healing or wounding, but always revealing. Love is also why I wrote this book: for the ancestors who were wiped from the record, who spoke to me when I almost didn’t listen. To give me a line to walk back to and a tree to lean against and shake when the mood strikes. Sometimes, I don’t even think of think of The Prophets as a book but as a prayer, a testimony, maybe even a witnessing. It’s my sincerest hope that you risk bearing witness with me.
Praise for The Prophets:
“How devastating and glorious this is. Epic in its scale, intimate in its force, and lyrical in its beauty. The Prophets shakes right down to the bone what the American novel is, should do, and can be.” – Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings
“Rarely is a book this finely wrought, the lives and histories it holds so tenderly felt, and rendered unforgettably true,” –Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
“Painfully harsh and painfully tender, this inventive, kaleidoscopic love story is a marvel,” Helen Phillips, author of The Need
“The lyricism of The Prophets will recall the prose of James Baldwin. The strong cadences are equal to those of William Faulkner’s Light in August,” Edmund White in Publishers Weekly.
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