“A propulsive, heart-rending memoir of love and war and peace. . . . The Dragons, The Giant, the Women is a major contribution to the new literature of African immigration.”―Namwali Serpell

“Deft and deeply human, Wayetu Moore’s The Dragons, the Giant, the Women had me pinned from its first page to its last.”―Mira Jacob


When Wayétu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai. Finally, a rebel soldier smuggles them across the border to Sierra Leone, reuniting the family and setting them off on yet another journey, this time to the United States.

Spanning this harrowing journey in Moore’s early childhood, her years adjusting to life in Texas as a black woman and an immigrant, and her eventual return to Liberia, The Dragons, the Giant, the Women is a deeply moving story of the search for home in the midst of upheaval. Moore has a novelist’s eye for suspense and emotional depth, and this unforgettable memoir is full of imaginative, lyrical flights and lush prose. In capturing both the hazy magic and stark realities of what is becoming an increasingly pervasive experience, Moore shines a light on the great political and personal forces that continue to affect many migrants around the world, and calls us all to acknowledge the tenacious power of love and family.

Wayétu Moore is the author of She Would Be King and The Dragons, The Giant, The Women. She is the recipient of the 2019 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction. She Would Be King was named a best book of 2018 by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Entertainment Weekly & BuzzFeed. She’s a graduate of Howard University, University of Southern California and Columbia University.

Enuma Okoro is a Nigerian-American writer and speaker whose work focuses on African and Diasporic Identity and Culture, and the role of Story and the Arts in shifting and challenging perceptions and perspectives. Currently at work on a novel, her articles and essays have been featured in The New York Times, AEON, Catapult, NYU Washington Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The UK and US Guardian, The Washington Post, Essence Magazine, and other media outlets.

Wayétu Moore on The Dragons, The Giant, the Women: A Memoir with Enuma Okoro II