Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates was born to Cheryl Waters and Paul Coates, a former local captain of the Black Panther Party and founder of Black Classic Press. Coates had seven siblings on his father’s side; his parents were strict and attentive, and his mother taught him to read at the age of four. Following high school, Coates attended Howard University, where his father worked as a research librarian. During his time at Howard, Coates began to work as a freelance journalist. It was during this time that he also met his future spouse, Kenyatta Matthews. After five years at Howard Coates left without graduating, and when they were both 24, he and Kenyatta had a son, Samori. Coates began publishing his journalism in a variety of outlets, including The Village Voice, Time, and The New York Times. He became a regular columnist for The Atlantic, and it is in this forum that some of his best-known essays have been published, including “The Case for Reparations” and an essay version of “Between the World and Me.” In 2008, Coates published a memoir that focused particularly on his youth and his relationship with his father entitled The Beautiful Struggle. This was followed by a bestselling memoir focusing on anti-black racism entitled Between the World and Me, which was published in 2015 to wide acclaim, and a collection of essays about the Obama years entitled We Were Eight Years in Power, published in 2017. Coates has been awarded numerous awards, including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 2015, and has taught at the City University of New York and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has written a Black Panther series and a Captain America series for Marvel Comics. The Water Dancer is his first novel.