As an openly gay man, he became increasingly outspoken in condemning discrimination against lesbian and gay people.

Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions of American racism. Eldridge Cleaver, of the Black Panthers, stated the Baldwin's writing displayed an 'agonizing, total hatred of blacks.' Baldwin's play, Blues for Mister Charlie, was produced in 1964. His inclusion of gay themes resulted in a lot of savage criticism from the Black community. His novels include Giovanni's Room, about a white American expatriate who must come to terms with his homosexuality, and Another Country, about racial and gay sexual tensions among New York intellectuals. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in New York City.

His essay collections Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, and The Fire Next Time were influential in informing a large white audience.įrom 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France, but often returned to the USA to lecture or teach. Go Tell It on the Mountain, his first novel, is a partially autobiographical account of his youth. Critics, however, note the impassioned cadences of Black churches are still evident in his writing. In the early 1940s, he transferred his faith from religion to literature. At age 14, Baldwin became a preacher at the small Fireside Pentecostal Church in Harlem. He was the eldest of nine children his stepfather was a minister. James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and '60s. James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

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