An Untamed State

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE, HURSTON/WRIGHT LEGACY AWARD, AND PEN OPEN BOOK AWARD

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: Washington Post, Boston Globe, and NPR

“Magical and dangerous. I could not put it down.”—Tayari Jones, bestselling author of Kin

From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist and Hunger, a “smart, searing” (Washington Post) novel following a strong-willed Haitian American woman who must survive a brutal kidnapping—now featuring a new foreword by the author

Published to terrific acclaim and a national bestseller, An Untamed State heralded Roxane Gay as a prodigious, arresting talent and one of the preeminent writers working today. 

By all appearances, Mireille Duval Jameson is living the perfect life: she’s the daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons and has an adoring husband and a precocious infant son. The fairytale ends when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men in front of her father’s Port-au-Prince estate. Held for ransom, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who calls himself the Commander and who resents everything she represents. 

A powerful, unflinching story of wealth in the face of crushing poverty and the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce, Roxane Gay’s brilliant debut is the tale of one strong-willed woman, and redemption found in the most unexpected of places.