Author: James Baldwin
Profile: James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, poet, playwright and activist. His essays are particularly related to the United States in the mid-twentieth-century and as collected in Notes of a Native Son. Intricacies of class, sexual and racial distinctions in Western society are also explored in his essays.
James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, United States and died in Saint Paul de Vence, France. Right from an early age he developed a passion for reading and during his school years he demonstrated a gift for writing. He completed schooling at the DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.
Writing style: James Baldwin was a voice of the American movement for civil rights. He has been one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. By exploring social and racial issues in most of his works, Baldwin broke new literary ground. His essays on the Black experience in the United States have made him especially popular.
Published Texts:
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
Short Stories and Essays
1953 – Stranger in the Village
1954 – Gide as Husband and Homosexual
1956 – Faulkner and Desegregation
1957 – Sonny’s Blues
1957 – Princes and Powers
1958 – The Hard Kind of Courage
1959 – The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American
1959 – Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter from the South
1960 – Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from Harlem
1960 – The Precarious Vogue of Ingmar Bergman
1961 – A Negro Assays the Negro Mood
1961 – The Survival of Richard Wright
1961 – Richard Wright
1962 – Letter from a Region of My Mind
1962 – My Dungeon Shook
1963 – A Talk to Teachers
1967 – Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White
1976 – The Devil Finds Work – a book-length essay
Collections
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
1964 – Blues for Mister Charlie
1990 – A Lover’s Question (album)
Collaborative Works
1964 – Nothing Personal
1971 – A Rap on Race
1971 – A Passenger from the West
1972 – One Day When I Was Lost
1973 – A Dialogue
1976 – Little Man Little Man: A Story of Childhood
2004 – Native Sons
Posthumous Collections
1998 – Early Novels & Stories: Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Another Country, Going to Meet the Man
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
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
2016 – Baldwin for Our Times: Writings from James Baldwin for an Age of Sorrow and Struggle
Awards and Acknowledgements:
1954 – Guggenheim Fellowship
Eugene F. Saxton Memorial Trust Award
Foreign Drama Critics Award
1963 – George Polk Memorial Award
1954, 1958, 1960 – MacDowell fellowships