It is often said, and carelessly repeated, that the reason Black people are queer is because slavery shattered our sense of righteousness and perverted us. JONES: I was hoping to counter a pernicious lie about the nature of queerness/transness in Black people with the truth. UKIOMOGBE: What were you hoping to achieve in writing The Prophets? What gaps were you trying to fill? Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Gayl Jones, Octavia Butler, Edwidge Danticat, Kola Boof, and Ayana Mathis are some of the writers who have, in many ways, made it possible for me to write. Theirs is the writing I connect with most because of the ways in which they deal with truths about the self and the world. Black women writers have had the most profound impact on my own writing. UKIOMOGBE: The Prophets is said to “blend the lyricism of Toni Morrison with the vivid prose of Zora Neale Hurston.” Do those two writers inform your current work ? I was in this loop of shouting, “Have mercy!” and “Thank you so much!” I was in a state of utter disbelief, about to leave for this road trip and trying to pull myself together. The National Book Foundation’s Twitter account tagged me in the announcement.

Family members and friends started calling and texting me, including my sister-friend and fellow longlister Honorée Fanone Jeffers.

My agent, publicist, and editor all called me at the same time. When the news came in, my husband and I were preparing to leave our home in Brooklyn for the amazing Provincetown Book Festival in Massachusetts. JULIANA UKIOMOGBE: Congratulations on being shortlisted for the National Book Award! Where were you when you heard the news? Below, Jones reflects on the importance of writing the truth, reads to us from his notebook, and tells us what’s on his writing playlist (Janet Jackson and Lil Nas X, to name a couple). The novel, which was recently shortlisted (as of this morning!) for the prestigious National Book Award for fiction, tells the heart wrenching story of two enslaved men-Isaiah and Samuel-who fall in love on a Mississippi plantation in the Antebellum South. on the occasion of his dazzling debut The Prophets, a haunting and beautiful historical novel about Black queer love and the dangerous repercussions of claiming and relishing in that love. In this edition, we speak to Robert Jones, Jr. From preferred writing drinks to whether or not you really need to carry a notebook, we find out all the ways they beat writer’s block and get it done. This is Rough Draft, in which our favorite writers get to the bottom of their own craft.

The prophets robert jones