![]() It certainly asks that the reader bear witness to things they might rather turn away from – but it is a fine piece of fiction, too. ![]() ![]() He writes that The Prophets is perhaps more “a witnessing” than a book. Jones’s writing style is lyrical, but he doesn’t shy away from the gut-churning horrors of slavery. This novel is – necessarily – not an easy read. Their brutal enslavement and transportation to America grimly follows. And while the bulk of the narrative takes place on the plantation, told from multiple characters’ perspectives, it is also interwoven with scenes set within a matriarchal African tribe. The novel names chapters after books of the Bible, but what really frames it are poetic sections written in the mysterious, eternal voices of seven ancestors, speaking out from the darkness. ![]() The Prophets is indeed an outstanding novel, delivering tender, close-up intimacy, but also a great sweep of history. Those two names come up repeatedly in advance publicity for The Prophets: the blurb hypes hard that Jones possesses a similar lyricism to those literary giants in his love story between two enslaved men, Isaiah and Samuel, on a plantation in Mississippi. ![]()
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