The Message Writing and the World

The Message charts Coates's re-entry as a public intellectual . . . The rolling, elegiac cadences of much of his earlier work have yielded to a fury that's harder edged. But a sense of shock also seems to have elicited in Coates a sense of possibility . . . [Coates] is using his position of prominence and moral authority to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians. Having lived the life of the famous Black writer in mostly white professional spaces, someone who has been both venerated and vilified, he finds in his new community "the warmth of solidarity." Instead of being the singular voice or the incomparable expert, Coates offers himself as an ally New York Times