Andy Kropa Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has been hailed by Maya Angelou as the writer who has filled the void left open by the late James Baldwin, providing a critical, piercing, and brilliantly logical voice that analyzes a crooked American system. Whether Coates intended to or not, the award-winning writer has met the calling as one of this generation’s intellectual leaders. His first three works – The Beautiful Struggle , a memoir detailing Coates love for hip-hop, and navigating his awkward teenage years of masculinity; Between the World and Me , a Baldwin-inspired letter to his son, which won a National Book Award; and We Were Eight Years in Power , a collection of essays in which Coates analyzes race and argues that Donald Trump’s election was an attempt to erase the traces of a Black president– along with his columns at The Atlantic– were nothing short of trailblazing. Considering his success as an author and former journalist, one would think that Coates writes without the burden of insecurities. But that’s not the case. During the ten years of writing his debut novel, The Water Dancer , a story about a slave named Hiram Walker who has a photographic memory, […]

Click here to view original web page at www.vibe.com