The Time of our Singing
  • Published: 12 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9781804951835
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 640

The Time of our Singing

Formats & editions
Paperback
23 Sep 2025
EBook
12 Jun 2025
Paperback
1 Apr 2004
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From the Booker-shortlisted author of The Overstory and Bewilderment

'There is no contemporary American writer quite like Richard Powers ... It is rare to find a novel as intellectually and emotionally engaging as this' GUARDIAN

Jonah, Ruth, and Joseph are the children of mixed-race parents who aspire to raise them beyond the constraints of time and identity, immersing them in a world of song. However, they cannot shield them from the realities of the outside world forever.

Jonah, a talented young tenor, finds that the opera world remains preoccupied with his race. Ruth, rejecting classical music, disappears instead into a life dedicated to activism and a new relationship. Over the years, Joseph - the middle child, a pianist, and our narrator - struggles not only to stay connected to his siblings but also to carve out a future on his own.

A powerful story of a tragedy of race in America, The Time of Our Singing is an enthralling, harrowing novel about the lives of choices of one family at the crossroads of identity.
  • Published: 12 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9781804951835
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 640
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About the author

Richard Powers

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His most recent book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.

portrait photo of Richard Powers

Also by Richard Powers

Playground
The Overstory
Bewilderment
Galatea 2.2
The Gold Bug Variations
Plowing the Dark
The Echo Maker
See all

Praise for The Time of our Singing

An epic novel of modern America that weaves ideas of race, music and science into a mysterious but satisfying tapestry ... Endlessly fascinating

Independent

There is no contemporary American writer quite like Richard Powers ... It is rare to find a novel as intellectually and emotionally engaging as this

Guardian

Formidable ... rewarding

Sunday Times

A great hurtle of a book, telling several powerful stories at once ... Strangely subtle and moving ... an astonishing performance ... Prodigious, illuminating and exhilarating

New York Times

Exhilarating ... Astonishing

Literary Review