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.