Ta-Nehisi Coates on his new novel 'The Water Dancer'

Some believe that the essays of the award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi Coates have helped foster a franker dialogue about race in America. Now he's branched into fiction with“The Water Dancer”, a novel which follows the life of a slave from childhood on a Virginia plantation. There are particularly moving passages in the book about the separation of families. He has been speaking to Martha Kearney about how he drew on contemporary accounts of slavery. (Image: Ta-Nehisi Coates Credit: Gabriella Demczuk)