Description

Martin Luther King Jr is a political visionary, human rights activist, preacher, scholar and martyr.
Chaym Smith is his dark mirror, a violent, cynical criminal with a mind and talent to mimic King’s. When Smith begins to act as King’s double at rallies, the contradictions and strange similarities between the two men set one question into sharp focus – is evil inherent or a product of circumstance?

Dreamer is a multi-layered masterpiece, capturing Civil Rights-era America in a snapshot of racism and brutality, revolution and hope.

Publisher Review

I am humbled by Dreamer and grateful for it. It is a transcendent, brilliant book . . . No other novelist among us today has quite Charles Johnson's philosophical weight, intellectual force or spiritual understanding . . . This is a book to sustain us - black and white, all of us - and so powerfully wrought as to endure in our literature so long as our literature itself endures -- DAVID GUTERSON Like a skiff exploring history's more hidden currents, Johnson's poetic language drifts with care over the moiling currents of King's intellect, leaving in its wake a wonderful, prismatic novel, exhorting and testifying, but never preaching * * Guardian * * Dreamer is not content merely to explore inequality and its pesky moral dilemmas; it goes farther, to hold up a mirror in which the interrelatedness of these apparent opposites can be viewed . . . a lively tale that leaves the reader with enormous concerns to contemplate . . . It's a joy to read fiction in which there is a cultivated vision at work -- Dennis McFarland * * New York Times * * What unites Dreamer's diverse concerns - biography, politics, sociology, ethics - is its passionate desire to celebrate black history and to vindicate King - it is powerful as a moral tribute * * Sunday Times * * His fiction transcends the immediate concerns of race and colour, and will find its place in the great body of literature produced by America's humanitarian tradition * * Literary Review * * A beautiful and heartfelt novel of substance; intriguing and cleverly rendered -- Oscar Hijuelos Compelling and profound, Dreamer is a book fully equal to its monumental subject, Martin Luther King Jr. Charles Johnson is one of the treasures of modern American literature -- Robert Olen Butler Superbly told, fictionalised history is rarely so good * * The Times * * Johnson is a superb craftsman . . . It is a measure of the rich profundity of Dreamer that its title could refer to any number of people: King himself, the narrator, the writer. As I closed the book, I rather hoped it referred to the reader * * Sunday Telegraph * * Elegant, erudite and fearless * * Time Out * *