Showing results by author "Ta-Nehisi Coates"

Ta-Nehisi Coates' debut is an infectious, reflective memoir - a lyrical saga of surviving the crack-stricken streets of Baltimore in the '80s. Son of Vietnam vet and black awareness advocate Paul Coates - a poor man who set out to publish lost classics of black history - Ta-Nehisi drifts toward salvation at Howard University, while his ominous brother Big Bill finds his own rhythm hustling.

"This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it." In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race", a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men.

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness.

"We were eight years in power" was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. Now Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America's "first white president".

Mit Barack Obama sollte die amerikanische Gesellschaft ihren jahrhundertealten Rassismus überwinden. Am Ende seiner Amtszeit zerschlugen sich die Reste dieser Hoffnung mit der Machtübernahme Donald Trumps, den Ta-Nehisi Coates als "Amerikas ersten weißen Präsidenten" bezeichnet: ein Mann, dessen politische Existenz in der Abgrenzung zu Obama besteht. Coates zeichnet ein bestechend kluges und leidenschaftliches Porträt der Obama-Ära und ihres Vermächtnisses.

In this issue: "Continental Shift" by Amy Davidson Sorkin: The European elections; "Staging the Frontier" by Valeria Luiselli: The Wild West meets the southern border; "Conduction" by Ta-Nehisi Coates;"Fireproof" by Jia Tolentino: In his début novel, the poet Ocean Vuong tells a story of surviving the violence of America; and "Heavenly Creatures" by Anthony Lane: Reviews of Rocketman and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.