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.James Baldwin Biography, accessed December 2, 2010James Baldwin: His Voice Remembered, The New York Times, December 20, 1987

Works
 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.Baldwin, James. October 1953. "Stranger in the Village ." Harper's Magazine.Baldwin, James. "Stranger in the Village (annotated)", edited by J. R. Garza. Genius.
 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."Richard Wright, tel que je l'ai connu" (French translation). Preuves. February 1961.
 1962. "Letter from a Region of My Mind". The New Yorker.
 1962. "My Dungeon Shook". The Progressive.
 1963. "A Talk to Teachers"Baldwin, James. December 21, 1963. "A Talk to Teachers." The Saturday Review.
 1967. "Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White". New York Times Magazine.Baldwin, James. April 9, 1967. "Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White." New York Times Magazine. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
 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 SonBaldwin, James. 1961. Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son. US: Dial Press. .
 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.Baldwin, James. [2010] 2011. The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, edited by R. Kenan. US: Vintage International. . .

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.Morrison, Toni, ed. 1998. Early Novels & Stories: Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni's Room, Another Country, Going to Meet the Man. Library of America. .
 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.Morrison, Toni, ed.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. Library of America. .
 2014. Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems.Baldwin, James. 2014. Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems. US: Beacon Press. .
 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.Pinckney, Darryl, ed. 2015. Later Novels: Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, If Beale Street Could Talk, Just Above My Head. Library of America. .
 2016. Baldwin for Our Times: Writings from James Baldwin for an Age of Sorrow and Struggle, with notes and introduction by Rich Blint.Blint, Rich, notes and introduction. 2016. Baldwin for Our Times: Writings from James Baldwin for an Age of Sorrow and Struggle.

References

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

Category:1924 births
Category:1987 deaths
Category:African-American writers
Category:American critics
Category:American civil rights activists
Category:American playwrights
Category:American poets
Category:Gay men
Category:LGBT African-Americans
Category:LGBT people from New York City
Category:American LGBT writers
Category:Writers from Manhattan