Libertie (Ebook)
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From the critically acclaimed and Whiting Award-winning author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman comes a book about what freedom actually means - and where to find it
Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2022
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 PEN AMERICA OPEN BOOK AWARD
A Times Book of the Month
One of Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club Picks
'A feat of monumental thematic imagination' - The New York Times Book Review
'An elegantly layered, beautifully rendered tour de force that is not to be missed' - Roxane Gay
Libertie Sampson was named by her father as he lay dying, in honour of the bright, shining future he was sure was coming. The only daughter of a prosperous Black woman physician, she was born free in a country still blighted by slavery. But she has never felt free. Shrinking from her mother's ambitions for her future, Libertie ventures beyond her insulated community, hoping that somehow, somewhere, she will create a life that feels like her own.
Immersive, lyrical and deeply moving, Libertie is a novel about legacy and longing, the story of a young woman struggling to discover what freedom truly means - for herself, and for generations to come.
Libertie (Hardback)
Buy from
From the critically acclaimed and Whiting Award-winning author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman comes a book about what freedom actually means - and where to find it
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021 * LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 PEN AMERICA OPEN BOOK AWARD
A Times Book of the Month
One of Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club Picks
'A feat of monumental thematic imagination' - The New York Times
Coming of age as a free-born Black girl in Brooklyn after the Civil War, Libertie Sampson was all too aware that her purposeful mother, a practicing physician, had a vision for their future together: Libertie would go to medical school and practice alongside her. But Libertie, drawn more to music than science, feels stifled by her mother's choices and is hungry for something else - is there really only one way to have an autonomous life? And she is constantly reminded that, unlike her mother who can pass, Libertie has skin that is too dark. When a young man from Haiti proposes to Libertie and promises she will be his equal on the island, she accepts, only to discover that she is still subordinate to him and all men. As she tries to parse what freedom actually means for a Black woman, Libertie struggles with where she might find it - for herself and for generations to come.
'A soaring exploration of what "freedom" truly means ... an elegantly layered, beautifully rendered tour de force that is not to be missed' - Roxane Gay
Libertie (Paperback)
Buy from
From the critically acclaimed and Whiting Award-winning author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman comes a book about what freedom actually means - and where to find it
Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2022
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 PEN AMERICA OPEN BOOK AWARD
A Times Book of the Month
One of Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club Picks
'A feat of monumental thematic imagination' - The New York Times Book Review
'An elegantly layered, beautifully rendered tour de force that is not to be missed' - Roxane Gay
Libertie Sampson was named by her father as he lay dying, in honour of the bright, shining future he was sure was coming. The only daughter of a prosperous Black woman physician, she was born free in a country still blighted by slavery. But she has never felt free. Shrinking from her mother's ambitions for her future, Libertie ventures beyond her insulated community, hoping that somehow, somewhere, she will create a life that feels like her own.
Immersive, lyrical and deeply moving, Libertie is a novel about legacy and longing, the story of a young woman struggling to discover what freedom truly means - for herself, and for generations to come.
Kaitlyn Greenidge
Kaitlyn Greenidge's debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, was one of The New York Times Critics' Top 10 Books of 2016 and a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She is a contributing writer for The New York Times, and her writing has also appeared in Vogue, Glamour, Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. Libertie is her second novel.
