Dreamer
- 19 Jan 2023
- 9781838857967
- £10.99
- 240 pp
- 129×198mm
- 29 Mar 2004
- 9780862419264
- £10
- 240 pp
- 129×198mm
- 7 Mar 2013
- 9781782111627
- £8.79
- 240 pp
In a few words
A fearless work of historical fiction that digs deep into the life of one of history’s best-known figures of the Civil Rights Movement
In a few words
A fearless work of historical fiction that digs deep into the life of one of history’s best-known figures of the Civil Rights Movement
In a few words
A fearless work of historical fiction that digs deep into the life of one of history’s best-known figures of the Civil Rights Movement
I am humbled by Dreamer and grateful for it. It is a transcendent, brilliant book . . . No other novelist among us today has quite Charles Johnson's philosophical weight, intellectual force or spiritual understanding . . . This is a book to sustain us – black and white, all of us – and so powerfully wrought as to endure in our literature so long as our literature itself endures
David Guterson
Like a skiff exploring history's more hidden currents, Johnson's poetic language drifts with care over the moiling currents of King's intellect, leaving in its wake a wonderful, prismatic novel, exhorting and testifying, but never preaching
I am humbled by Dreamer and grateful for it. It is a transcendent, brilliant book
David Guterson
What unites Dreamer's diverse concerns - biography, politics, sociology, ethics - is its passionate desire to celebrate black history and to vindicate King - it is powerful as a moral tribute
I am humbled by Dreamer and grateful for it. It is a transcendent, brilliant book . . . No other novelist among us today has quite Charles Johnson's philosophical weight, intellectual force or spiritual understanding . . . This is a book to sustain us – black and white, all of us – and so powerfully wrought as to endure in our literature so long as our literature itself endures
David Guterson
What unites Dreamer's diverse concerns - biography, politics, sociology, ethics - is its passionate desire to celebrate black history and to vindicate King - it is powerful as a moral tribute
More about
the book
Martin Luther King Jr is a political visionary, human rights activist, preacher, scholar and martyr.
Chaym Smith is his dark mirror, a violent, cynical criminal with a mind and talent to mimic King’s. When Smith begins to act as King’s double at rallies, the contradictions and strange similarities between the two men set one question into sharp focus – is evil inherent or a product of circumstance?
Dreamer is a multi-layered masterpiece, capturing Civil Rights-era America in a snapshot of racism and brutality, revolution and hope.
More about
the book
Set against the racial turbulence of the Civil Rights Era, Dreamer is the first work of fiction to explore the life of Martin Luther King Jr – political visionary, human rights activist, preacher, scholar and martyr.
Johnson’s brilliantly realised historical novel deftly handles its material, weaving together a subtle and beautiful novel of immense power and importance. Dreamer is a multi-layered masterpiece.
More about
the book
Martin Luther King Jr is a political visionary, human rights activist, preacher, scholar and martyr.
Chaym Smith is his dark mirror, a violent, cynical criminal with a mind and talent to mimic King’s. When Smith begins to act as King’s double at rallies, the contradictions and strange similarities between the two men set one question into sharp focus – is evil inherent or a product of circumstance?
Dreamer is a multi-layered masterpiece, capturing Civil Rights-era America in a snapshot of racism and brutality, revolution and hope.
Dreamer is not content merely to explore inequality and its pesky moral dilemmas; it goes farther, to hold up a mirror in which the interrelatedness of these apparent opposites can be viewed . . . a lively tale that leaves the reader with enormous concerns to contemplate . . . It's a joy to read fiction in which there is a cultivated vision at work
Dennis Mcfarland
New York TimesWhat unites Dreamer's diverse concerns - biography, politics, sociology, ethics - is its passionate desire to celebrate black history and to vindicate King - it is powerful as a moral tribute
His fiction transcends the immediate concerns of race and colour, and will find its place in the great body of literature produced by America's humanitarian tradition
A beautiful and heartfelt novel of substance; intriguing and cleverly rendered
Oscar Hijuelos
Like a skiff exploring history's more hidden currents, Johnson's poetic language drifts with care over the moiling currents of King's intellect, leaving in its wake a wonderful, prismatic novel, exhorting and testifying, but never preaching
His fiction transcends the immediate concerns of race and colour, and will find its place in the great body of literature produced by America's humanitarian tradition
Like a skiff exploring history's more hidden currents, Johnson's poetic language drifts with care over the moiling currents of King's intellect, leaving in its wake a wonderful, prismatic novel, exhorting and testifying, but never preaching
His fiction transcends the immediate concerns of race and colour, and will find its place in the great body of literature produced by America's humanitarian tradition
Dreamer is not content merely to explore inequality and its pesky moral dilemmas; it goes farther, to hold up a mirror in which the interrelatedness of these apparent opposites can be viewed . . . a lively tale that leaves the reader with enormous concerns to contemplate . . . It's a joy to read fiction in which there is a cultivated vision at work
Dennis Mcfarland
New York TimesWith compelling profundity and power Johnson takes us to a time, one within living memory, when a 'dreamer among us saw love as our redemptive principle and strongest weapon before he 'died for our collective racial sins'
Andy Solomon
Boston Globe
Charles Johnson
View profileCharles Johnson is a novelist, screenwriter, essayist, professional cartoonist and was the Pollock Professor of English at the University of Washington until his retirement. In 1998 he received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and in 2003 literary scholars founded the Charles Johnson Society at the American Literature Association. He is the author of more than sixteen books, including the PEN/Faulkner-nominated story collection The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the novel Middle Passage, for which he won the National Book Award.
Charles Johnson
View profileCharles Johnson won the US National Book Award in 1990 for his novel Middle Passage. A widely published literary critic, philosopher, cartoonist, screen-writer, essayist and lecturer, he is one of twelve African-American authors honoured in an international series of stamps celebrating great writers of the twentieth century. In 1998 he received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and in 2003 literary scholars founded the Charles Johnson Society at the American Literature Association. He is currently the Pollock Professor of English at the University of Washington.
Charles Johnson
View profileCharles Johnson is a novelist, screenwriter, essayist, professional cartoonist and was the Pollock Professor of English at the University of Washington until his retirement. In 1998 he received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and in 2003 literary scholars founded the Charles Johnson Society at the American Literature Association. He is the author of more than sixteen books, including the PEN/Faulkner-nominated story collection The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the novel Middle Passage, for which he won the National Book Award.
