Winfrey picks Ta-Nehisi Coates' first novel for her book club

[The Patriot]

Winfrey picks Ta-Nehisi Coates' first novel for her book club

09-24-2019 08:54 AM

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ first novel, “The Water Dancer,” has been a long and eventful journey.Begun a decade ago, his chronicle of a slave with an extraordinary memory who joins the Underground Railroad is the result of countless drafts, a shift from multiple narrators to a single voice, some needed advice from fellow writers and hundreds of thousands of words discarded. Coates’ research ranged from reading interviews with ex-slaves and consulting a 19th-century Farmer’s Almanac — books duly pictured on his Instagram account — to his numerous and revelatory visits to former plantations.And then came that call from Oprah Winfrey.


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