![]() ![]() With “We Were Eight Years in Power” Coates returns to the literary center quickly on the heels of his PEN- and National Book Award-winning “Between the World and Me.” In July 2015 when his book-length essay appeared, Coates had already been built a strong reputation for his provocative efforts on the Atlantic’s electronic and paper pages and his excellent 2008 memoir, “The Beautiful Struggle.” Across his oeuvre, Coates’ prose style and literary prowess are hip-hop sharpened: he believes in the art of dexterous reference, potent, lyrical critique and political storytelling. ![]() In fact, most of us live for the day when we can struggle against anything else.” However, as he explains throughout these pages, black Americans struggle out of fear for their and their children’s lives they struggle to avoid their feelings because “to actually consider all that was taken, to understand that it was taken systematically, that the taking is essential to America and echoes down through the ages, could make you crazy.” Coates’ writing emerges from this struggle while articulating a way of holding this madness at bay aesthetically and intellectually. Early in “We Were Eight Years in Power,” Ta-Nehisi Coates’ third book, he writes, “here is a notion out there that black people enjoy the Sisyphean struggle against racism. ![]()
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