Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play There was no higher power after my parents other than books and learning.' 'Our whole house was basically a library. 'I had books all over my house,' he says. In fact, Dungeons & Dragons and comic books helped inspire his love of literature. This year, Between the World and Me was adapted for HBO as a special feature, with appearances by Angela Bassett, Mahershala Ali, and our very own Oprah.Īnd like Oprah, Coates has always adored reading, particularly fantasy and science fiction. In 2015, he won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for one of them: Between the World and Me, a letter written to his son about his experience as a Black man in America. The author first began writing around age 17, and went on to work for several publications, including The Village Voice and TIME, before writing three non-fiction books. The Water Dancer, however, was Coates fourth book. His historical novel follows the story of Hiram Walker, a young man born as a slave on a plantation in Virginia who has been gifted a mysterious, magical power that eventually saves his life. But Coates says he enjoyed stepping into the world of fiction by publishing The Water Dancer in 2019. 'You could build a monument out of the essayists who sought to be novelists,' he jokes.

When it comes to releasing a debut novel, most authors–even Ta-Nehisi Coates-don't automatically expect a positive reception, much less to become an Oprah's Book Club Pick.

Ta nehisi coates the water dancer