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.
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 Crepuscule - 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 Fares; 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
1924 births
1987 deaths
African American writers
American critics
American playwrights
American poets
Cancer deaths in France
Deaths from esophageal cancer
Gay men
LGBT African Americans
LGBT people from New York City
LGBT writers
Writers from Manhattan