James Baldwin

**James Arthur Baldwin** (August 2, 1924 &ndash; 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.

## 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*.
* 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.

## 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