LIBERTIE

Pure brilliance. So much will be written about Kaitlyn Greenidge's Libertie - how it blends history and magic into a new kind of telling, how it spins the past to draw deft circles around our present - but none of it will measure up to the singular joy of reading this book.

Greenidge delivers another genius work of radical historical fiction.This pièce de résistance is so immaculately orchestrated that each character, each setting, and each sentence sings.

Kaitlyn Greenidge has built a lush, imaginative novel, as dark and beautiful as its namesake yet as relevant today as during its 19th-century setting. I didn't want it to end, and I fear that any attempt to render its complexity with brevity equals a failure to capture the book's vast depth and its conversation with so many other important historical and literary works. A page turner and a gorgeous winner.

This is one of the most thoughtful and amazingly beautiful books I've read all year. Kaitlyn Greenidge is a master storyteller.

The voice that fuels this novel is rooted in the body and rises toward myth, forged of history, ocean salt, iron, and hope. With Libertie, Kaitlyn Greenidge adds an indelible new sound to American literature, and confirms her status as one of our most gifted young writers.

Stunning... This engaging novel immerses readers in a world rich with historical detail that brings to life lesser-known aspects of postCivil War American history, such as Black women in medicine and the relationship between Haiti and the United States. This will appeal to teenage fans of adult authors like Toni Morrison, Brit Bennett, and Yaa Gyasi.

UK: Serpent's Tail ; CAN: HarperCollins Canada ; Swedish: Modernista

Greenidge is a master of character building... Libertie is an easy page turner - its simple prose makes the plot digestible and the lyrical sentences sing louder. Libertie combines race, colorism, history, and sexism with the utter human pain of lostness. It's a beautiful telling of gorgeously tragic characters who keep you rooting for them, even as they continue to stray and stray and stray.

This is a historical novel, a magical novel, a familial novel, a Bildungsroman - a work that defies simple categorization. The complexities herein signify an important writer throwing all her talents and brilliance on the page, offering us more than we deserve. Reading Libertie can feel like reading Toni Morrison. Such a comparison, however, is a disservice to Kaitlyn Greenidge, who is an original light, a writer to emulate, a master of the craft, and a mind we're fortunate to have living among us.

Few novels have as strong a sense of place as this fascinating blend of magical realism and African American historical fiction ... Greenidge succeeds beautifully at presenting the complexities of an intense mother-daughter bond ... Greenidge creates a richly layered tapestry of Black communal life, notably Black female life, and the inevitable contradictions and compromises of "freedom."

In this singular novel, Kaitlyn Greenidge confronts the anonymizing forces of history with her formidable gifts. Libertie is a glorious, piercing song for the ages - fierce, brilliant, and utterly free.

With Libertie... Greenidge is making a stylistic leap with an intricately researched and lushly imagined coming-of-age story set in 19th-century Brooklyn and Jacmel, Haiti... Both epic and intimate.

The book has already appeared on numerous most-anticipated and "Best Of" lists, including Time, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, O The Oprah Magazine, USA Today and many others.

I want to say that Kaitlyn Greenidge's Libertie is a glorious diasporic literary song, but the novel is so much more than that. A book so deeply invested in the politics and place of silence is one of the most melodious books I've read in decades. The ambition in Libertie is only exceeded by Greenidge's skill. This is it.

What is care and what is poison? Where does life end? Where does liberty begin? By creating Libertie - a 19th century 'black gal,' a modern existential heroine - Greenidge has resurrected more than an ancestor. She has revived the anger and the love, the grief and the pride, and, above all, the fierce need for freedom that still drive our nation today.

Greenidge explores issues that are still real today while also inviting readers into historical moments that will be new to many.Greenidge shows us aspects of history we seldom see in contemporary fiction.

Kaitlyn Greenidge has just been named one of the 2021 Guggenheim Fellows, given to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts"

Kaitlyn and the book were featured in a profile in Publishers Weekly Read more...

Kaitlyn Greenidge's historical fiction unites the African diaspora. Libertie is a feat of monumental thematic imagination... Greenidge both mines history and transcends time, centering her post-Civil-War New York story around an enduring quest for freedom... The sheer force of Greenidge's vision for [Libertie], for us all, gives us hope that it won't be long now.

From the first page, Greenidge catapults us into a masterfully crafted story in which the possibilities, limitations and shifting contours of freedom for Black people take center stage... She conjures a fiercely gorgeous, complex portrait of life for Black women during the Reconstruction era. It is a story that's at once politically weighted and intimately resonant... Greenidge perfectly weds the precision of historical details and context with fantastical elements of myth and magic to illuminate the enduring questions: What does freedom mean for Black girls and women? What does it look, smell, feel, sound and taste like? Libertie is a beautifully written meditation on Black liberation and imagination. It is exquisite historical fiction that lovingly reminds us to reassess our own present-day commitments to fighting for, and practicing, freedom.

Greenidge follows up her highly successful debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, with the heart-wrenching fictional story of the young daughter of one of the first female physicians in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, a stunning look at what freedom really means.

Wielding both her knowledge of our history and her incredible sense of story, Kaitlyn Greenidge further establishes herself as one of the sharpest minds working today. Libertie is a novel of epic power and endless grace.

Kaitlyn Greenidge is one of my favorite contemporary minds, and I love her essays and newsletter, but WOW, it is such a pleasure to read this historical novel, which starts in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, and which reminded me that Greenidge's immense talent as a writer shines most brightly through her fiction.

Spectacular... A revelatory and enchanting piece of historical fiction.

Kaitlyn Greenidge and her sisters achieved success in their respective fields. In her historical novel, "Libertie," she focuses on a Black woman who doesn't yearn to be the first or only one of anything. Read more...

the New York Times ran an excellent, thoughtful profile of Greenidge, "Excellence Runs In the Family. Her Novel's Heroine Wants Something Else"... Read more...