There There

There There

Summary

** Shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award **

One of Barack Obama's best books of 2018, the New York Times bestselling novel about contemporary America from a bold new Native American voice


'A thunderclap' Marlon James
'Astonishing' Margaret Atwood, via Twitter
'Pure soaring beauty' Colm Tóibín

Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and hoping to reconnect with her estranged family. That's why she is there. Dene is there because he has been collecting stories to honour his uncle's death, while Edwin is looking for his true father and Opal came to watch her boy Orvil dance.

All of them are connected by bonds they may not yet understand. All of them are here for the celebration that is the Big Oakland Powwow. But Tony Loneman is also there. And Tony has come to the Powow with darker intentions.

'An exhilarating, polyphonic debut novel... Dazzling'
Daily Telegraph

'Lyrical and playful, shaking and shimmering with energy... Orange creates beauty out of tragedy'
Guardian

'Bold and engrossing... Orange has got under his characters' skins, allowing them to speak for themselves'
Financial Times

A New York Times Top 10 Best Book 2018
An Oprah Magazine Top 15 Best Book 2018
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2019
Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2019
Winner of the Writer's Center First Novel Award 2018

Reviews

  • How do you rewrite the story of a people? This question shapes Tommy Orange’s sorrowful, beautiful debut novel . . . There There itself is a kind of dance. Even in its tragic details, it is lyrical and playful, shaking and shimmering with energy. The novel dips into the tiniest personal details and sweeps across history. Orange creates beauty out of tragedy.
    Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Guardian

About the author

Tommy Orange

Tommy Orange is faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA program. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, he was born and raised in Oakland, California. Orange's debut novel, There There, was a New York Times bestseller, a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize, and received the 2019 American Book Award. Wandering Stars is his second book.
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