Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ award-winning book and stage show Between the World and Me is being adapted into an HBO special, slated to arrive this fall.

Coates' hugely important 2015 book, written as a letter to his teenage son, laid bare the painful realities of being a Black man in the United States and instigated much-needed conversations about structural racism and inequality within the mainstream media.

The New York Times bestseller has appeared on reading lists of everyone from Barack Obama to Nipsey Hussle. Coates' novel and his 2018 stage show at the Apollo have become indispensable texts as people seek to understand the current racial inequalities and oppression of Black people in America.

Apollo Theater executive producer Kamilah Forbes, who adapted the book for the stage show, will direct the HBO special, which will also include animation, as well as archival and documentary footage. Coates and actress Susan Kelechi Watson (This Is Us) will produce the special along with filmmaker Roger Ross Williams.