Ta-Nehisi Coates returns to political writing in his new book 'The Message'

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2024

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ta-Nehisi Coates is no stranger to political writing–or controversy. But his new book, The Message, marks the author's return to nonfiction almost a decade after the publication of Between the World and Me. The new book of essays focuses on Coates' reporting in three central locations: the American South, Palestine and Africa. In today's episode, Coates speaks with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about books bans and criticism of the author's position on the war in Gaza.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's book at the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. It could have been so easy for
0:07.2	Tanahazi Coates to just coast for the rest of his career. The former Atlantic journalist made a huge
0:13.0	splash with his book between the world and me, and he could have parlayed that into a pretty
0:18.1	decent career being a talking head on the cable news shows.
0:21.7	Instead, he dabbled in comics, wrote a novel, but mostly stayed away from the spotlight.
0:27.5	Or so it seemed, because what he was actually doing was Boots on the Ground reporting,
0:31.9	and his new book, The Message, is a reflection of that.
0:34.5	The book is made up of dispatches from Senegal, South Carolina,
0:38.2	and the West Bank, tackling some of today's hot-button issues. And in this interview with
0:42.9	Amper's Aisha Roscoe, one of the most provocative things he says is about book bans, where he goes,
0:49.4	the people in favor of book bans understand the power of books much better than those that oppose them.
0:56.5	Find out why.
0:57.2	After the break.
0:58.7	A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story.
1:03.0	But right now, you probably need more.
1:05.8	On Up First from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every day in under 15 minutes because no one's story can capture all that's happening in this big, crazy world of ours on any given morning.
1:19.4	Listen now to the upfirst podcast from NPR.
1:23.5	Tanahasi Coates is no stranger to tackling fraught topics.
1:28.2	A decade ago, his article in The Atlantic titled The Case for Reparations, spurred a national conversation about compensating African Americans.
1:38.5	His goal, he says, was to get people to stop laughing about the idea and start talking.
1:44.5	He followed up a year later with a book called Between the World and Me,
1:49.0	an exploration of his own history and the realities of being black in the U.S.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.