Author Ta-Nehisi Coates Tells CBS SUNDAY MORNING He Wants Readers to be “Haunted” by His Work

Critically acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates has earned a huge following and several prestigious awards for his thought-provoking books dealing with race, including Between the World and Me and his latest, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. Coates doesn't want people to simply read the books, he wants them to be moved by them, he tells Martha Teichner in an interview for CBS SUNDAY MORNING to be broadcast Sunday, Nov. 5 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.

"I try to write in a way that makes people feel things," Coates tells Teichner. "I don't want them to read what I'm writing and say, 'I think that's right' and agree with me. I want them to read something and then walk away and be haunted by it."

Coates latest book became an instant bestseller. And Between the World and Me, a letter to his son about the hazards of being a black male in the U.S., won the National Book Award in 2015. That same year, he was awarded a so-called MacArthur "genius" Grant.

Coates tells Teichner his initial audience is himself. "Secondly, it's probably young African-American kids who came up like me."

He grew up in Baltimore, surrounded by both violence and books. His father, Paul Coates, a one-time Black Panther, published books by forgotten African-American writers from an office in his basement and also worked as a research librarian at Howard University. Ta-Nehisi Coates went on to study there, and spent a lot of time in the library. Today, his writing is required or recommended reading in at least 400 schools and colleges.

"My job is to look out on that world that I write about and be as honest as I possibly can about that world," Coates tells Teichner. "If that's optimistic and uplifting, okay. If it's not, okay."

CBS SUNDAY MORNING is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

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