The Wayfinder

On an island where no one remembers the word for stranger, a young girl must choose between saving her people and leaving them forever.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Adam Johnson, bestselling author of The Orphan Master's Son, comes a sweeping historical epic inspired by the legends, history, and seafaring traditions of the Pacific.

Korero has never seen a stranger.

Born on a remote island so isolated that its people have forgotten the very word for outsider, she lives in a world shaped by the sea, the stars, and the stories passed down through generations.

But when a mysterious visitor arrives from across the ocean, everything changes.

With her people facing starvation and uncertainty, Korero is offered an impossible choice: remain on the island she has always called home, or set sail into the unknown toward the Kingdom of Tonga, guided only by the stars and the promise of a better future.

What follows is an extraordinary journey across the Pacific—a voyage of survival, discovery, courage, and destiny that will transform a young girl into a leader and change the course of history.

Richly imagined and utterly immersive, The Wayfinder combines the epic scope of Shogun with the emotional power of Wolf Hall, bringing to life a world where myth and history intertwine and where every journey begins with a story.

A monumental historical adventure about courage, belonging, leadership, and the enduring power of stories.

About the Author :
Adam Johnson?is the author of?Fortune Smiles, which won the National Book Award and the Story Prize and?The Orphan Master’s Son, which won the Pulitzer Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the California Book Award. His previous books include the short-story collection?Emporium?and the novel?Parasites Like Us. Johnson was born in South Dakota and is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Stanford University.

Review :
‘Epic in every sense of the word, this is a high wire act that burns the net below.’  'How lucky we are that Adam Johnson has ignited for us this wild, epic and utterly captivating skein of human history. His years of immersion in the Polynesian oral tradition and research into the Tu‘itonga Empire shimmer through The Wayfinder at every twist, but his rollicking storytelling leads the way.'  'From talking corpses to poetic parrots, The Wayfinder is bursting at the seams with ideas and blistering prose.'  'Expansive in scope, historically detailed and totally enthralling . . . Johnson's monumental research into the history, legacy and imprint of the Polynesian culture is evident in the meticulous detail of his narrative?which is about much more than his characters, whose vibrancy demands acknowledgement, and his gorgeous landscape descriptions . . . Part bildungsroman, part historical exploration, this novel is a study of the many islands in the South Pacific, their power struggles, abuses of power and the perseverance to survive.'  'A majestic saga of political unrest in the South Pacific and a girl's quest to save her people . . . This is remarkable.'  '[Johnson’s] audacious, unruly imagination roams with confidence through the island kingdom of Tonga . . . A grand, perilous and transfiguring adventure . . . Enchanted touches are deftly threaded into the rangy storyline by Johnson's richly lyrical prose, which is also capable of handling the social dynamics of the Tongans along with the background stories of royalty and their rivals . . . A world that, like the pendant recovered at the novel’s start, feels ‘both ancient and startlingly new.’'  '[An] epic-scale historical adventure from Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson . . . Johnson paints a rich tale of nature, politics and tradition . . . It's a unique, spellbinding saga that drew us into an elaborate world.'  'This is one of [Adam Johnson's] biggest swings yet . . . A sprawling epic.' 
  ‘An epic of extraordinary abundance . . . modern and mythological . . . wondrous enough to endure’ 'Johnson is a master builder of fictive worlds. The Wayfinder is a story of cultural erasure wrapped into a fantastical fable.'