Miami, Dec. 12, 2017 – Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Book Fair (MBF) and Books & Books present An Evening with Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with WLRN journalist Nadege Green, Thursday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m., at the Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami. Tickets are $30 per person, and include a copy of the book.
In 2008, Ta-Nehisi Coates, a National Book Award-winning author, 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?”
To answer that question, We Were Eight Years in Power employs the same erudite storytelling, self-reflection and unsparing honesty that propelled Coates book, Between the World and Me into the cultural zeitgeist and led author 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 election of Donald Trump, a man Coates argues is America’s “first white president.” He does so through his intimate and revealing perspective—the point of view of a young writer who begins his journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing the President of the United States.
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.
Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. His book Between the World and Me won the National Book Award in 2015. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.
Tickets may be ordered online at www.booksandbooks.com
About Miami Book Fair
Founded in 1984 by Miami Dade College and partners, Miami Book Fair engages the community through inclusive, accessible programs that promote reading and support writers year round. The annual eight-day festival has grown into the largest and most comprehensive community-rooted literary gathering in the United States. The Fair features readings and discussions with the world’s most renowned authors, generating discourse on contemporary literature and current issues of international importance. The Fair also include culinary presentations; live music and interdisciplinary performances; interactive, educational activities for children; and more than 200 booksellers and publishers during the Street Fair. Events take place in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole and French. In addition to the annual festival, the Miami Book Fair responds to community needs with a year-round schedule of activities, including The Little Haiti Book Festival, highlighting Haiti’s literary acumen; creative writing and publishing workshops; author presentations; reading campaigns; and Read to Learn Books for Free, a partnership with The Children’s Trust that distributes more than 150,000 free books a year to children in Miami-Dade County.
Miami Book Fair is made possible through the generous support of the State of Florida and the National Endowment for the Arts; the City of Miami; Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; Miami-Dade County Public Schools; the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau; the Miami Downtown Development Authority; and the Friends of the Fair; as well as many corporate partners. Miami Book Fair: Building community, one reader at a time.
Miami Book Fair media contacts: Lisa Palley, 305-642-3132 lpalley@bellsouth.net, or Cristina Nosti, (786) 554-1764, Cristina@booksandbooks.com