James Baldwin

**James Arthur Baldwin** (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, and social critic.

Baldwin's essays, such as the collection _Notes of a Native Son_ (1955), explore racial, sexual, and class matters in Western societies, mostly in mid-20th-century America. He looks at how these large things cause problems for, mostly but not only, African American individuals.

## Life

Baldwin was born on August 2, 1924 in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. He studied at DeWitt Clinton High School and at The New School. Baldwin was gay. He never married and had no children. Baldwin died on December 1, 1987 in Saint-Paul de Vence, France from esophageal cancer, aged 63.

### Novels

- 1953. _Go Tell It on the Mountain_ (semi-autobiographical)
- 1956. _Giovanni's Room_
- 1962. _Another Country_
- 1968. _Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone_
- 1974. _If Beale Street Could Talk_
- 1979. _Just Above My Head_

### Essays and short stories

Many essays and short stories by Baldwin were published for the first time as part of collections. Others, however, were published individually at first and later included with Baldwin's compilation books. Some essays and stories of Baldwin's that were originally released on their own include:

- 1949. "Everybody's Protest Novel". _Partisan Review_ (June issue)
- 1953. "Stranger in the Village". _Harper's Magazine_.
- 1954. "Gide as Husband and Homosexual". _The New Leader_.
- 1956. "Faulkner and Desegregation". _Partisan Review_.
- 1957. "Sonny's Blues". _Partisan Review_.
- 1957. "Princes and Powers". _Encounter_.
- 1958. "The Hard Kind of Courage". _Harper's Magazine_.
- 1959. "The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American". _The New York Times Book Review_.
- 1959. "Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter from the South". _Partisan Review_.
- 1960. "Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from Harlem". _Esquire_.
- 1960. "The Precarious Vogue of Ingmar Bergman". _Esquire_.
- 1961. "A Negro Assays the Negro Mood". _New York Times Magazine_.
- 1961. "The Survival of Richard Wright". _Reporter_.
- 1961. "Richard Wright". _Encounter_.
- 1962. "Letter from a Region of My Mind". _The New Yorker_.
- 1962. "My Dungeon Shook". _The Progressive_.
- 1963. "A Talk to Teachers"
- 1967. "Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White". _New York Times Magazine_.
- 1976. _The Devil Finds Work_ — a book-length essay published by Dial Press.

### Collections

Many essays and short stories by Baldwin were published for the first time as part of collections, which also included older, individually-published works (such as above) of Baldwin's as well. These collections include:
- 1955. _Notes of a Native Son_
- 1961. _Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son_
- 1963. _The Fire Next Time_
- 1965. _Going to Meet the Man_
- 1972. _No Name in the Street_
- 1983. _Jimmy's Blues_
- 1985. _The Evidence of Things Not Seen_
- 1985. _The Price of the Ticket_
- 2010. _The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings_.

### Plays and audio

- 1954 _The Amen Corner_ (play)
- 1964. _Blues for Mister Charlie_ (play)
- 1990. _A Lover's Question_ (album). Les Disques Du Crépuscule – TWI 928–2.

### Works with others

- 1964. _Nothing Personal_, with Richard Avedon (photography)
- 1971. _A Rap on Race_, with Margaret Mead
- 1971. _A Passenger from the West_, narrative with Baldwin conversations, by Nabile Farès; appended with long-lost interview.
- 1972. _One Day When I Was Lost_ (orig.: A. Haley)
- 1973. _A Dialogue_, with Nikki Giovanni
- 1976. _Little Man Little Man: A Story of Childhood_, with Yoran Cazac
- 2004. _Native Sons_, with Sol Stein

### Collections printed after Baldwin's death

- 1998. _Early Novels & Stories: Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni's Room, Another Country, Going to Meet the Man_, edited by Toni Morrison.
- 1998. _Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street, The Devil Finds Work, Other Essays_, edited by Toni Morrison.
- 2014. _Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems_.
- 2015. _Later Novels: Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, If Beale Street Could Talk, Just Above My Head_, edited by Darryl Pinckney.
- 2016. _Baldwin for Our Times: Writings from James Baldwin for an Age of Sorrow and Struggle_, with notes and introduction by Rich Blint.

## Other websites

- Altman, Elias. "Watered Whiskey: James Baldwin's Uncollected Writings" April 13, 2011. _The Nation_.
- Gwin, Minrose. "Southernspaces.org" March 11, 2008. _Southern Spaces_
- James Baldwin Photographs and Papers  Selected manuscripts, correspondence, and photographic portraits from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
- Comprehensive Resource of James Baldwin Information
- James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket distributed by California Newsreel

## Infobox (writer)

- **name**: James Baldwin
- **image**: James Baldwin 37 Allan Warren (cropped).jpg
- **caption**: Baldwin in 1969
- **birth place**: New York City, U.S.
- **death place**: Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France
- **resting place**: Ferncliff Cemetery, Westchester County, New York
- **occupation**: Novelist, playwright, activist
- **language**: English
- **years active**: 1947–1985
- **education**: DeWitt Clinton High School