Ta-Nehisi Coates Knows Not Everyone Will Love ‘The Message’

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s breakthrough memoir, “Between the World and Me,” made an immediate impact when it was published in 2015, at the fraught tail end of the Obama era, and catapulted the Baltimore-born writer to prominence in the public conversation on race. “I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died,” Toni Morrison declared. “Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates.”

Nearly 10 years later, the country — and the world — are in the midst of another contentious moment. Coates, who teaches at Howard University, has returned with a hybrid of memoir and reportage, “The Message” (a nod to the D.J. Grandmaster Flash). The book ruminates on writing and messages, their power and fallacies. It’s about what it means to be a “steward” of tradition and what it means to “walk the land” with eyes wide open.

The book consists of three journeys, or intellectual pilgrimages — to Senegal, South Carolina and the West Bank — that powerfully haunted Coates. In a video interview from his home in New York, he reckoned with his wavering faith in journalism, as well as his need to keep exploring, questioning and writing. “I have ideas growing out of my ears,” he said, laughing.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

“The Message” was partly inspired by George Orwell’s essay “Why I Write.” How did you answer the question somewhat differently?

The book had its origins in a course I teach at Howard University. I always start with Orwell’s “Why I Write” because he connects politics and language, which is something that has always been present in my own literary tradition. I really wanted to write a craft book. I wanted to include things you should do in sentences, things you should not do, why things work, why things don’t work.

How important was it that “The Message” take the form of a letter addressed to one of your students at Howard?