From journalist and writer Tiffanie Drayton, a provocative and timely memoir about the weight of living in a racist society – and the broken promise of the American Dream In the summer of 2020, as America underwent a reckoning with racism that was centuries in the making, Tiffanie Drayton wrote a provocative, personal, and widely shared New York Times essay called ““I’m A Black American. I Had to Get Out.” In it, she reflects on her choice to leave the U.S. to return to her home island of Tobago, right before the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd—and how she felt grieving and raging for Black Americans from across an ocean. Now, in her powerful new memoir, BLACK AMERICAN REFUGEE: Escaping the Narcissism of the American Dream (Viking; On Sale: February 8, 2022), Drayton is telling her whole story – that of a woman coming to terms with how systemic racism has poisoned America, and ultimately deciding she has to leave the “land of the free” to be truly emancipated. A provocative, personal look at race in America, BLACK AMERICAN REFUGEE follows Drayton’s journey from the Caribbean to the U.S., and back again, offering a strident, unflinching look at the toll a lifetime of racism can take. Speaking as a Black American who left our country, she offers a complex and unique perspective on the broken promise of the American Dream – which is too often inaccessible for people of color – as she looks back on her home of twenty years with clear eyes, potent criticism, and unshakable hope for the future.