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Ta-Nehisi Coates is a distinguished writer in residence at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is a former staff writer at The Village Voice and Time and has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and numerous other publications. Coates has authored a memoir: The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, and runs a blog, Ta-Nehisi News, which was named one of Time magazine's Best Blogs of 2011. His second book Between The World and Me won the National Book Award for Noniction in 2015. Ta-Nehisi is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. He is also the current author of the Marvel comics The Black Panther and Captain America.
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The Beautiful Struggle is a memoir with three central characters: you, your
brother, Big Bill, and your father, Paul Coates, a Vietnam vet and Black
Panther. What was it like to write your first book when the people you were
describing are still so close to you?
Not as hard as you might imagine. My people have always been open about these
sorts of things, though I must say I didn't know how open until I started
interviewing and writing. I think two things are at work here. 1) People just
love to talkI know this from my magazine writing. As crazy as it sounds, most
people want to tell you their story, and they want it to be recorded. I often
regret that I didn't know this when I was single! Moving on. 2) My brother and
father know they have their issues, but they also know that most people have
issues. They understand that when you read The Beautiful Struggle, whatever
rawness, whatever dirt that's there, you'll see in yourself. To err is human, as
the old cliché goes, and I think those points at which we all err in the book
are the very things that will draw people in. Even if they haven't walked the
same road, I think they'll see themselves in the essential human drama of it
all.
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Douglas Westerbeke's much anticipated debut
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi in this dazzlingly epic!
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