In his debut novel, Brooklyn native Robert Jones, Jr., describes the romantic and tragic relationship between Samuel and Isaiah, two enslaved young men on a Mississippi cotton plantation in the early 1800s. The Prophets explores gender and sexuality, race, power, toxic religion and masculinity.
The New Yorker called The Prophets a “panoramic vision of love and cruelty" and The New York Times described the instant bestseller as “a lyrical and rebellious love story.” It is much more than a love story. It viscerally connects the dots from slavery to today’s racial disparities and from Missionary Christianity to the slave trade, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny.