The Warmth of Other Suns - by Isabel Wilkerson (Hardcover)

About the Book

With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells the story of the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, from 1915 to 1970, through the lives of three unique individuals.

Book Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER - ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR - TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE - ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY - A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY - LOS ANGELES TIMES'S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE LAST 30 YEARS - AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE PAST TWO DECADES

"A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth."--John Stauffer, The Wall Street Journal

"What she's done with these oral histories is stow memory in amber."--Lynell George, Los Angeles Times

WINNER: The Mark Lynton History Prize - The Anisfield-Wolf Award for Nonfiction - The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize - The Hurston-Wright Award for Nonfiction - The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism - NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Debut - Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize

FINALIST: The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction - Dayton Literary Peace Prize

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, Salon, Newsday, The Daily Beast

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Economist, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, Philadelphia Inquirer, The Guardian, The Seattle Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Christian Science Monitor

In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970.

Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper's wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an "unrecognized immigration" within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.

Review Quotes

"A landmark piece of nonfiction . . . [Isabel Wilkerson's] closeness with, and profound affection for, her subjects reflect her deep immersion in their stories and allow the reader to share that connection."--Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"A brilliant and stirring epic, the first book to cover the full half-century of the Great Migration . . . Wilkerson combines impressive research . . . with great narrative and literary power. Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth."--John Stauffer, The Wall Street Journal

"[A] massive and masterly account of the Great Migration . . . a narrative epic rigorous enough to impress all but the crankiest of scholars, yet so immensely readable as to land the author a future place on Oprah's couch."--David Oshinsky, The New York Times Book Review

"[A] deeply affecting, finely crafted and heroic book . . . This is narrative nonfiction, lyrical and tragic and fatalist. The story exposes; the story moves; the story ends. What Wilkerson urges, finally, isn't argument at all; it's compassion. Hush, and listen."--Jill Lepore, The New Yorker

"Told in a voice that echoes the magic cadences of Toni Morrison or the folk wisdom of Zora Neale Hurston's collected oral histories, Wilkerson's book pulls not just the expanse of the migration into focus but its overall impact on politics, literature, music, sports--in the nation and the world."--Lynell George, Los Angeles Times

"[An] extraordinary and evocative work."--The Washington Post

"Mesmerizing."--Chicago Tribune

"Scholarly but very readable, this book, for all its rigor, is so absorbing, it should come with a caveat: Pick it up only when you can lose yourself entirely."--O: The Oprah Magazine

"[An] indelible and compulsively readable portrait of race, class, and politics in twentieth-century America. History is rarely distilled so finely."--Entertainment Weekly

"Astonishing . . . Isabel Wilkerson delivers! . . . With the precision of a surgeon, Wilkerson illuminates the stories of bold, faceless African-Americans who transformed cities and industries with their hard work and determination to provide their children with better lives."--Essence

"Profound, necessary and an absolute delight to read."--Toni Morrison

"A sweeping and yet deeply personal tale of America's hidden twenteith-century history. This is an epic for all Americans who want to understand the making of our modern nation."--Tom Brokaw

"A seminal work of narrative nonfiction . . . You will never forget these people."--Gay Talese

"This book will be long remembered, and savored."--Jon Meacham

"A masterful narrative of the rich wisdom and deep courage of a great people. Don't miss it!"--Cornel West

About the Author

ISABEL WILKERSON won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her reporting as Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. The award made her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. She won the George Polk Award for her coverage of the Midwest and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for her research into the Great Migration. She has lectured on narrative writing at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University and has served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and as the James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University. She is currently Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston University. During the Great Migration, her parents journeyed from Georgia and southern Virginia to Washington, D.C., where she was born and reared. This is her first book.