Apollo Theater Presents: Ta-Nehisi Coates In Conversation: A Post Mid-Term Reflection

The Apollo Theater announced today that critically acclaimed writer, artist and thinker Ta-Nehisi Coates and investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones will be in conversation about the midterm elections, the state of American politics, and the historical currents that inform our present. The program will take place on Monday, November 19 at 7:00 p.m.

In his sweeping collection of new and selected essays, We Were Eight Years In Power, Ta-Nehisi Coates employs the same erudite storytelling, self-reflection and unsparing honesty that propelled Between the World and Me into the cultural zeitgeist and led Toni Morrison to hail it as "required reading." Part memoir and part polemic, Coates powerfully examines the threads between the unprecedented election of Barack Obama and the vicious backlash that fueled the last Presidential election of Donald Trump.

"A master class...Anyone who wants to know who we are-and where we came from-must sit with [Ta-Nehisi Coates] for a good while...It should inspire us as writers, and as Americans, that he urges us...to become better-or at least clearer on why we're not." -Kevin Young, New York Times Book Review

Tickets begin at $20 and are available at the Apollo Theater Box Office: (212) 531-5305, 253 West 125th Street, and Ticketmaster at 1-800-745- 3000, www.ticketmaster.com.

In 2008, National Book Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates went from believing that a black president was impossible, to being challenged by the sudden prospect of one. In his new book, WE WERE EIGHT YEARS IN POWER: An American Tragedy, Coates recalls the moment: "I remember how Obama caused me to question myself and my basic relationship with my country. All my life I had seen myself, and my people, backed into a corner. Had I been wrong?"

More than an analysis of our first black president, We Were Eight Years In Power is a personal narrative that examines the symbiosis of Obama's influence on American culture, Coates's intellectual and professional growth, and the inspiring new voices, ideas, and movements that emerged together over this period. This masterwork is comprised of eight fresh essays, in which Coates revisits each year of the Obama administration through his own immersive experiences and observations, and nine iconic essays previously published in The Atlantic, including "Fear of a Black President," "The Case for Reparations," "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration," and more.

We Were Eight Years In Power combines Ta-Nehisi's award-winning journalism with the more introspective voice of Between the World and Me to illuminate what this period has taught us about the heart of America and the shadow of our nation's old and unreconciled history.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a distinguished writer in residence at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the author of the bestselling books The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, and Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015. Ta-Nehisi is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. He is also the current author of the Marvel comics The Black Panther and Captain America.