The Strangers

Ekow Eshun is a genius. He holds a torch where institutions have refused to look and helps us all to see through shadows to the magnificent strangers. His writings on the Black aesthetic are unsurpassed – and my world is a better place because he is writing in it. This book will be referenced for years to come

Lemn Sissay, author of 'My Name is Why'

Thrilling and ingenious, propulsive and genre-defying: The Strangers is an outstanding book. Ekow Eshun resurrects five pioneering figures, connecting them thematically to each other while constantly recalibrating the contexts around them, revealing wider global histories, cultures and patterns of power. Compelling and imaginatively expansive, this is something very special – creative non-fiction that inspires, stirs and challenges the reader

Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of 'Girl, Woman, Other'

The architecture of this book is extraordinary, the execution exceptional. A work of literary portraiture which is meticulously researched, beautifully expressed and above all moving and evocative. I was educated and enriched to the very last page

Charlotte Williams, author of 'Sugar and Slate'

Elegant, evocative, moving – I think it’s brilliant. I’ve never read a book like it and I’m wiser for reading it

Philippa Perry

Beautiful, powerful and haunting, this book defies erasure with imagination and integrity

Afua Hirsch, author of 'Brit(ish)'

This book is life-changing. I want to press it into so many hands

Noreen Masud, author of 'A Flat Place'

Wholly unique and important, written with great compassion and intelligence in Ekow Eshun’s singular, arresting style. He says things that need to be said, with a sweeping eye on history and its impact on our present

Diana Evans, author of 'Ordinary People'

Unputdownable and fiercely tender - through these five men, five masks, five mirrors, we meet ourselves. This act of docu-poetry should be required reading for all

Es Devlin, award-winning artist and stage designer

A beautifully written, haunting exploration of Black masculinity that pushes the boundaries of genre: part biography, part fiction, part essay, part historical record, woven together seamlessly to produce an original, rich and compelling narrative. It provides a vital insight into the importance of Black contributions to Western culture – contributions that have so often been denied. I can’t praise The Strangers highly enough: its impact remains long after the final pages and it deserves to be widely read

Jacqueline Roy, author of 'The Fat Lady Sings'

Moving, thoughtful, redemptive. The Strangers is an important book. It will become a Black classic

Ben Okri, author of 'The Famished Road'

Staggering. Outside of Baldwin himself, I can’t think of a creative approach to critique that hit me as hard as this. The storytelling, the archival work, the erudition and research behind it, the capacity for invention (down to the use of dialogue), and—one of my favourite aspects of this book—its singular, inventive use of form. It’s rare to read a book that’s so invigorating, intervening with freshness and new clarity in longstanding conversations; and that gives you such a striking new way of describing and seeing your own world. If this doesn’t become a classic, then I don’t know what ever could

Jason Allen-Paisant, T. S. Eliot Prize-winning author of 'Self-Portrait as Othello'

The Strangers is diamantine – multifaceted, sharp and exceptionally bright. I was captivated by its vivid depiction of these five Black lives

Doireann Ní Ghríofa

This book is astounding. Told with a rigour and intimacy that only Ekow Eshun could conjure… In a world where Blackness is synonymous with death, The Strangers portrays scenes of beauty, of fullness – of just what it means to be alive'

Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of 'Open Water'

A generous gift . . .The author inhabits the perspective of five figures, from Malcolm X to footballer Justin Fashanu, in this lyrical account of their lives, a thrilling affront to the archives that exclude them . . . Each chapter is absorbing, no matter how much you already know about each person

Observer

Mesmerising. A book of creative non-fiction centred on important Black historical figures... Ekow Eshun brings them beautifully, movingly to life

Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year 2024)

One for the intellectually curious. Eshun mixes biography and imagination to craft essays based on the lives of five Black men from history. Interspersed with thoughts about the author's own experiences as a Black man, the stories cross generations, and form part of a wider narrative about race, culture and historical amnesia

Lola Young, Observer (Books of the Year 2024)

An extraordinary feat of empathy. Innovative [and] intimate... this book is an act of rapprochement rendered with great emotional intelligence and tenderness. Remarkable

Guardian

Artfully delves into the minds and motivations of five pioneering Black men

Guardian, 'The best biographies and memoirs of 2024'