‘The Prophets’ by Robert Jones Jr.

Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's.

‘The Prophets’ by Robert Jones Jr. is set against the brutal backdrop of a cotton plantation in the Deep South. Embedded in the horrors of the life on a plantation is a beautiful love story: the forbidden love story of Samuel and Isaiah—two young enslaved men whose connection is as tender as it is dangerous.

Told through a chorus of voices—Samuel and Isaiah, those who love them, those who fear them, and those who own them—the narrative moves with poetic force. The shifting perspectives, including echoes from ancestors and glimpses into ancestral memory, build a layered portrait of resistance, longing, and what it means to love in the midst of dehumanization.

Brilliantly woven together, all their stories culminate in an ending I never expected. And although this story doesn’t neglect the daily lives (horrors) of enslaved people, the novel is not defined by cruelty alone. It is a story of kinship, memory, intimacy, and the sacredness of chosen bonds. The emotional weight of the ending lingers long after the final page.

CW: enslavement and systemic racism, physical and sexual violence, homophobia, religious fundamentalism, misogyny and gender-based violence, trauma