Author and editor Ta-Nehisi Coates will lecture on “A Deeper Black: Race in the Age of Obama,” on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 7 p.m. at Stetson University. The presentation is free and open to the public and will be held in the Stetson Room of the Carlton Union Building, 131 E. Minnesota Ave., DeLand.

On the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 8, Coates will lead a writing workshop, which is also free and open to the public. For more information on participating in the workshop, call Stetson’s Cross Cultural Center at (386) 822-7401.

Coates, a writer and senior editor for The Atlantic, is author of the critically acclaimed memoir, The Beautiful Struggle, a tough and touching description of growing up in Baltimore during the age of crack. It’s also a vivid portrait of his father, a former Vietnam veteran and Black Panther who started his own underground black press, had seven children with four women, and dedicated his life to carrying his sons across the shoals of inner-city adolescence.

As one of the most original and perceptive new voices in black America, renowned American novelist Walter Mosley, calls Coates “the young James Joyce of the hip hop generation.” Coates writes about various topics, including politics, race, black history and pop culture. Rachel Maddow, an American television host and political commentator, recently wrote, “Don’t know, if in U.S. commentary, there is a more beautiful writer than Ta-Nehisi Coates.”