James Baldwin

James Baldwin, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1955

James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1], 1987) was a novelist, short story writer, and essayist, who is regarded as one of the most important African-American writers of the mid 20th-century. As a young man Baldwin was primarily influenced by Richard Wright and other novelists of the black radical tradition, and Baldwin himself would come into his prime as a writer during the 1950's and 60's as one of the most outspoken and poignant authors in a period of immense cultural change. Today Baldwin as regarded as one of the most eloquent and one of the most progressive of all African-American novelists; his works were among some of the first in African-American literature to move outside the black experience, to address issues of identity pertinent to people of all races and backgrounds. Baldwin is also considered by many critics to be one of the most inherently talented American writers of the mid 20th-century who was capable of producing masterpieces in a variety of genres, including novels such as Go Tell It On The Mountain, essays such as The Fire Next Time, and haunting short stories like Sonny's Blues. In the years since his death, Baldwin has become an influence not only to African-American writers, but to American literature at large.

History

Baldwin was born in New York's Harlem neighborhood in 1924, the first of his mother's nine children. He never met his biological father and may never have even known the man's identity. Instead, he considered his stepfather, David Baldwin, his only father figure. David, a factory worker and store-front preacher, was allegedly very cruel at home, and the young Baldwin never forgave him for it. While Baldwin's father opposed his literary aspirations, he was able to find support for his writing from teachers as well from the mayor of New York City, Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who took the young Baldwin under his wing.

Baldwin's most important source of support, however, came from his idol Richard Wright, whom he called "the greatest black writer in the world for me". Wright and Baldwin became friends for a short time and Wright helped him to secure the a scholarshpi which assured him his financial independence. Baldwin titled a collection of essays Notes of a Native Son, in homage to Wright. The close friendship between the two writers, however, would come to an end with the publication of Baldwin's 1949 essay "Everybody's Protest Novel", in which Baldwin asserted that Native Son, like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, lacked credible characters and psychological complexity. Wright never forgave Baldwin for the criticism, and the two stayed on icy terms until the elder writer's death. Many years later, during an interview with Julius Lester [1] Baldwin explained that his adoration for Wright remained: "I knew Richard and I loved him. I was not attacking him; I was trying to clarify something for myself."

Baldwin, like many American authors of the time, left to live in Europe for an extended period of time beginning in 1948. His first destination was Paris where Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Wright, and many others had lived during their writing careers. While living in Paris Baldwin wrote his first two novels, Go Tell It On The Mountain, (1953) and Giovanni's Room (1956). Go Tell It On The Mountain, Baldwin's largely autobiographical tale of a dysfunctional black family's experiences on a single day at church, would catapult the writer to instantaneous fame. Giovanni's Room, however, would shock and confuse many of Baldwin's readers with its frank depictions of sexuality as well as for its complete absence of black characters. When Baldwin returned to America, he became actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He participated in the march on Washington, D.C., with Martin Luther King, Jr..

After returning to the United States, Baldwin would continue to write, but with the exception of The Fire Next Time, a book of essays on the Civil Rights Movement and published in 1963, most of his works would be of diminishing quality. During this time Baldwin attempted to write another, extremely ambitious novel Another Country, dealing with issues of racial, gender, and sexual identity through a large cast of multicultural characters, but the book proved to be a critical failure. After attempting to make a new career for himself as a playwright, Baldwin would largely resign himself from literary writing, splitting his time between lecturing in the United States and writing essays in Southern France. He would sporadically continue to make attempts at fiction over the last two decades of his life, but none of Baldwin's works from his later period have garnered any critical acclaim. Baldwin died of cancer in 1987 at the age of 63.

Bibliography

• Go Tell it on the Mountain (novel; 1953)
• Stranger in the Village (1953)
• Notes of a Native Son (essays and stories; 1955)
• The Amen Corner (play; 1954)
• Giovanni's Room (novel; 1956)
• Sonny's Blues (1957)
• Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (essays and stories; 1961)
• Another Country (novel; 1962)
• The Fire Next Time (essays; 1963)
• Blues for Mister Charlie (play; 1964)
• Going to Meet the Man (essays and stories; 1965)
• Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (novel; 1968)
• No Name in the Streets (essays; 1972)
• If Beale Street Could Talk (novel; 1974)
• The Devil Finds Work (essays; 1976)
• Just Above My Head (novel; 1979)
• Jimmy's blues (poems; 1985)
• The Price of the Ticket (essays; 1985)
• The Evidence of Things Not Seen (essays; 1985)

Collaborative Works:

• Nothing Personal (with Richard Avedon) (1964)
• A Rap on Race (with Margaret Mead) (1971)
• One Day When I Was Lost (orig.: A. Haley; 1972)
• A Dialogue (with Nikki Giovanni) (1973)
• Little Man, Little Man (with Yoran Lazac; for children; 1976)

External links

• "An Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Y. Davis" by James Baldwin
• Baldwin's American Masters page
• Baldwin's C-Span page on American Writers
• Baldwin in the Literary Encyclopedia
• Several brief biographical sketches
• Bedford-St. Martin's Baldwin essay page links
• Audio files of speeches and interviews at UC Berkeley
• Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles
• James Baldwin on Anti-Semitism

Credits

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