The Message (Coates book)

The Message is a nonfiction book by American author Ta-Nehisi Coates, published on October 1, 2024, by Random House under its One World imprint. The Associated Press described the book as "part memoir, part travelogue, and part writing primer". The narrative reflects on his visits to Dakar, Senegal; Chapin, South Carolina; and the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The latter half of the book covers Coates's ten-day trip in the summer of 2023 to Israel-Palestine – his first time in the region – and his argument against "the elevation of factual complexity over self-evident morality". The New York Times called it "the heart of the book, and the part that is bound to attract the most attention". According to a profile in New York magazine, The Message "lays forth the case that the Israeli occupation is a moral crime, one that has been all but covered up by the West". In the book, Coates writes: "I don't think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel."