The Names of the New World

Named a Most-Anticpated Book by Los Angeles Times, Town & Country, Kirkus, BiblioLifestyle, St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Minneapolis Star Tribune

"An epic account of the fight for human dignity and an intimate, unforgettable story of love, ambition, and resilience." --Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Wayfinder

The highly anticipated second novel from the award-winning author Kawai Strong Washburn: an extraordinary saga of resilience and ambition in the face of a chaotic world.

A ferocious superstorm strikes Minneapolis, leveling large swaths of the city in a matter of minutes. In the storm's wake, three people forge an unlikely bond that will shape their lives for the next twenty five years: Naomi, a disillusioned lawyer by day and amateur MMA fighter by night, searching for the meaning she's lost after migrating from Hawai'i; Amaré, an up-by-the-bootstraps investment banker with grand designs for all the money he's about to make; and Raheem, a diesel mechanic nearly paralyzed by the storm and struggling to save his business.

When Naomi realizes that energy companies are responsible for the climate-induced superstorm--and the many more to come, potentially dooming her island homeland--she initiates a bitter legal battle, one that culminates in her ascension to a political office in D.C. with the power to prevent future tragedies. Yet her rise puts at risk a burgeoning romance with Amaré, whose own ambitions test Naomi's ethical limits, while Raheem's fate as a blue-collar business owner becomes dependent on the couple's growing power.

Following his acclaimed debut, Sharks in the Time of Saviors, Kawai Strong Washburn again turns his remarkable gift of mythic sight to the oceans and landscapes we so often overlook in the name of progress. Spanning two decades and ranging from the American Midwest to the nation's halls of power to islands across the Pacific, The Names of the New World is a startling, energetic, and optimistic vision of how to live in this era of overwhelming change.