A National Book Award Winner and considered “Required reading” by Toni Morrison, Between the World in Me is a letter between a black father and his son. Coates writes of his lessons, and what he hopes his son never has to learn. He describes his life with an intimacy that is not easily found in other depictions, thus breaking down barriers and inviting the reader to wrestle through with him.
From the jacket: “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 – bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion.”
Coates did an interview with Ezra Klein for The Ezra Klein podcast. It is a fascinating and intriguing interview that I (Darcie) have listened to repeatedly to glean and grasp. You can find that HERE.