The Wayfinder - by Adam Johnson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Named one of Ten Best Books of 2025 by The Wall Street Journal
Named one of Ten Best Books of 2025 by The Washington Post
Named a Best Novel of 2025 by NPR and Publishers Weekly
Named a Best Historical Novel of 2025 by The New York Times

"A powerful and original epic . . . Deadly politics, tragic romance and dangerous sea journeys keep the drama at a spirited boil."
--The New York Times

"An epic of extraordinary abundance . . . modern and mythological . . . wondrous enough to endure."
--The Wall Street Journal

"An epic that feels less created than unearthed . . . The Wayfinder is sui generis--a tapestry of South Pacific myth, archetypal quest, political allegory, environmental jeremiad and feminist revision that feels both ancient and impossibly relevant."
--The Washington Post

Talking corpses, poetic parrots, and a fan that wafts the breath of life--this is the world young Kōrero finds herself thrust into when a mysterious visitor lands on her island, a place so remote its inhabitants have forgotten the word for stranger. Her people are desperate and on the brink of starvation, and the wayward stranger offers them an impossible choice: they can remain in the only home they've ever known and await the uncertainty to come, or Kōrero can join him and venture into unfamiliar waters, guided by only the night sky and his assurance of a bountiful future in the Kingdom of Tonga. What Kōrero and her people don't know is that the promised refuge is no utopia--instead, Tonga is an empire at war and on the verge of collapse, a place where brains are regularly liberated from skulls and souls get trapped in coconuts with some frequency.

The perils of Tonga are compounded by a royal feud: loyalties are shifting, graves are being opened, and everyone lives in fear of a jellyfish tattoo. Here, survival can rest on a perfectly performed dance or the acceptance of a cup of kava. Together, the stranger and Kōrero embark upon an epic voyage--one that will deliver them either to salvation or to the depths of the Pacific.

Evoking the grandeur of Wolf Hall and the splendor of Shōgun, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Adam Johnson conjures oral history, restores the natural world, and locates what's best in humanity. Toweringly ambitious and breathtakingly immersive, The Wayfinder is an instant, timeless classic.

Review Quotes

"Novels are long divorced from the oral tradition; few are designed to last beyond their reading. But some books--Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), for instance, or Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove (1985)--continue to be passed down, like legends. Predicting posterity is impossible, but The Wayfinder is this kind of work, modern and mythological. It is good enough, wondrous enough, to endure."
--The Wall Street Journal

"An epic that feels less created than unearthed . . . Johnson's dizzying attention to the mercurial crosscurrents of conquest recalls . . . Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacob. His bold melding of magic and psychological realism casts a spell as captivating as Marlon James's Black Leopard, Red Wolf. Yet The Wayfinder is sui generis--a tapestry of South Pacific myth, archetypal quest, political allegory, environmental jeremiad and feminist revision that feels both ancient and impossibly relevant."
--Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"Johnson is a master builder of fictive worlds. The Wayfinder is a story of cultural erasure wrapped into a fantastical fable."
--Los Angeles Times

"This is one of [Adam Johnson's] biggest swings yet . . . A sprawling epic."
--Joumana Khatib, The New York Times Book Review

"[Johnson's] audacious, unruly imagination roams with confidence through the island kingdom of Tonga . . . A grand, perilous, and transfiguring adventure . . . Enchanted touches are deftly threaded into the rangy storyline by Johnson's richly lyrical prose, which is also capable of handling the social dynamics of the Tongans along with the background stories of royalty and their rivals . . . A world that, like the pendant recovered at the novel's start, feels 'both ancient and startlingly new.'"
--Kirkus Reviews

"A majestic saga of political unrest in the South Pacific and a girl's quest to save her people . . . This is remarkable."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Expansive in scope, historically detailed, and totally enthralling . . . Johnson's monumental research into the history, legacy, and imprint of the Polynesian culture is evident in the meticulous detail of his narrative--which is about much more than his characters, whose vibrancy demands acknowledgement, and his gorgeous landscape descriptions . . . Part bildungsroman, part historical exploration, this novel is a study of the many islands in the South Pacific, their power struggles, abuses of power, and the perseverance to survive."
--Booklist (starred review)

"From talking corpses to poetic parrots, The Wayfinder is bursting at the seams with ideas and blistering prose."
--Chicago Review of Books

"How lucky we are that Adam Johnson has ignited for us this wild, epic, and utterly captivating skein of human history. His years of immersion in the Polynesian oral tradition and research into the Tu'itonga Empire shimmer through The Wayfinder at every twist, but his rollicking storytelling leads the way."
--Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Candy House

"The Wayfinder is a singular achievement. Everything you can ask for in a reading experience, and, because it's Adam Johnson, a little bit more. There are lines in here so pure and direct and lyrical and right, they make my teeth ache."
--Stephen Graham Jones, author of the New York Times bestseller The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

"Epic in every sense of the word, this is a high-wire act that burns the net below. Epic in that it swings with the same music in great works from Gilgamesh on down. Epic in scope that races across time and space until one is no different from the other. Epic in that we are swept up in a journey where not even the reader returns. In The Wayfinder myth becomes fact, magic becomes wisdom, poetry is in the mouths of birds, and a young girl sets out to remake the world."
--Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings and Moon Witch, Spider King

About the Author

Adam Johnson is the author of Fortune Smiles, which won the National Book Award and the Story Prize, and The Orphan Master's Son, which won the Pulitzer Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the California Book Award. His previous books include the short-story collection Emporium and the novel Parasites Like Us. Johnson was born in South Dakota and is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Stanford University.