Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an American author, journalist, and cultural commentator, widely considered one of the most important voices on race in America of his generation. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, he studied at Howard University. He was a national correspondent for The Atlantic for many years. Between the World and Me (2015) won the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Written as a letter to his son, the book meditates on Black life in America and the ongoing threat of racial violence. It was praised by Toni Morrison as a work 'required reading.' Coates is also the author of We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (2017), a collection of Atlantic essays, and the novel The Water Dancer (2019). He wrote acclaimed runs of the Black Panther and Captain America comic book series for Marvel. His most recent nonfiction book, The Message (2023), is a collection of essays on storytelling, Palestine, and Senegal. Coates has received a MacArthur Fellowship, the PEN/Galbraith Award, and honorary degrees from multiple universities. He has taught at MIT, NYU, and the Howard University MFA program. His work has sparked extensive public debate about reparations, mass incarceration, and the political economy of American racism.