From the award-winning author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water comes a brilliant, provocative, up-to-the-minute novel about a young white man’s education and miseducation in contemporary America.
Harry Sylvester Bird grows up in Edward, Pennsylvania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevy, whom he greatly dislikes. They’re racist, xenophobic, financially incompetent, and they have quite a few secrets of their own. To Harry, they represent everything wrong with this country. And his small town isn’t any better. He witnesses racial profiling, graffitied swastikas, and White Power signs on his walk home from school. He can’t wait until he’s old enough to leave. When he finally is, he moves straight to New York City, where he feels he can finally live out his true inner self.
In the city, he meets and falls in love with Maryam, a young Nigerian woman. But when Maryam begins to pull away, Harry is forced to confront his identity as he never has before—if he can.
Brilliant, funny, original, and unflinching, Harry Sylvester Bird is a satire that speaks to all the most pressing tensions and anxieties of our time—and of the history that has shaped us and might continue to do so.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Harry Sylvester Bird grows up in Edward, Pennsylvania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevy, whom he greatly dislikes. They’re racist, xenophobic, financially incompetent, and they have quite a few secrets of their own. To Harry, they represent everything wrong with this country. And his small town isn’t any better. He witnesses racial profiling, graffitied swastikas, and White Power signs on his walk home from school. He can’t wait until he’s old enough to leave. When he finally is, he moves straight to New York City, where he feels he can finally live out his true inner self.
In the city, he meets and falls in love with Maryam, a young Nigerian woman. But when Maryam begins to pull away, Harry is forced to confront his identity as he never has before—if he can.
Brilliant, funny, original, and unflinching, Harry Sylvester Bird is a satire that speaks to all the most pressing tensions and anxieties of our time—and of the history that has shaped us and might continue to do so.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Arresting, bold, and exactly the kind of book we need right now. Harry Sylvester Bird is haunting in the best way possible. It is truly thrilling to read such an unapologetic point of view from such a masterful storyteller." - Angie Cruz
"In her long-anticipated sophomore novel Harry Sylvester Bird, Chinelo Okparanta deftly slips into a new skin to deliver a scathing and incisive look at white America. A must-read for everyone committed to the work of anti-racism, Harry Sylvester Bird is both a delightfully unsettling and deeply necessary political text; a timely triumph of satire by one of our finest literary minds." - Akwaeke Emezi
"Chinelo Okparanta's new book has its finger firmly on the American zeitgeist. It is provocative in its look at race today, it is thoughtful, but most of all it is beautifully written." - Helon Habila
"Chinelo Okparanta has written a biting, deftly written satire that throws into sharp relief contemporary politics around identity, race, and nationalism. Harry Sylvester Bird is an enigmatic narrator whose fumbling efforts at self-actualization and romance remind us of the universal struggle to know oneself and to be more than the prejudices we've inherited." - Naomi Jackson
"Irreverent and compassionate at once, Okparanta interrogates our current moment. In her hands, humor is a weapon, a tool, and a salve. You will laugh until you cry, or maybe you will cry until you laugh." - Tayari Jones
"Chinelo Okparanta is one of our finest writers, and Harry Sylvester Bird is her finest book yet: funny, moving, and (in the best sense of the word) incendiary." - David Leavitt
"In her long-anticipated sophomore novel Harry Sylvester Bird, Chinelo Okparanta deftly slips into a new skin to deliver a scathing and incisive look at white America. A must-read for everyone committed to the work of anti-racism, Harry Sylvester Bird is both a delightfully unsettling and deeply necessary political text; a timely triumph of satire by one of our finest literary minds." - Akwaeke Emezi
"Chinelo Okparanta's new book has its finger firmly on the American zeitgeist. It is provocative in its look at race today, it is thoughtful, but most of all it is beautifully written." - Helon Habila
"Chinelo Okparanta has written a biting, deftly written satire that throws into sharp relief contemporary politics around identity, race, and nationalism. Harry Sylvester Bird is an enigmatic narrator whose fumbling efforts at self-actualization and romance remind us of the universal struggle to know oneself and to be more than the prejudices we've inherited." - Naomi Jackson
"Irreverent and compassionate at once, Okparanta interrogates our current moment. In her hands, humor is a weapon, a tool, and a salve. You will laugh until you cry, or maybe you will cry until you laugh." - Tayari Jones
"Chinelo Okparanta is one of our finest writers, and Harry Sylvester Bird is her finest book yet: funny, moving, and (in the best sense of the word) incendiary." - David Leavitt
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