The image, painted by the artist Calida Garcia Rawles, depicts a black man submerged in water, a reflection of both a plot point in the book as well as Rawles’ previous work, in which she said she’s combined the “meditative” quality of water to reckon with black trauma.—Concepción de León
Alias Harbour is used for text. By coincidence, the cover of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ novel Between the World and Me uses Alias Elephant. The Water Dancer is to be published by One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in September 2019.