Ta-Nehisi Coates Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of The Beautiful Struggle, talks about what it was like growing up black in 1980s urban America.

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 talk—I 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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