James Baldwin
photograph courtesy
of Claire Burch
Selected works by
James Baldwin
GO TELL IT ON THE
MOUNTAIN, 1953
NOTES OF A
NATIVE SON, 1955
GIOVANNI’S ROOM, 1956
NOBODY KNOWS
MY NAME, 1962
ANOTHER COUNTRY, 1962
THE FIRE NEXT TIME, 1963
NOTHING PERSONAL (with
Richard Avedon), 1964
BLUES FOR MISTER
CHARLIE (a play), 1964
GOING TO MEET
THE MAN, 1965
TELL ME HOW LONG THE
TRAIN’S BEEN GONE, 1968
THE AMEN CORNER
(a play), 1968
A RAP ON RACE (with
Margaret Mead), 1971
NO NAME IN THE
STREET, 1972
A DIALOGUE
(with Nikki Giovanni), 1973
ONE DAY, WHEN
I WAS LOST, 1973
IF BEALE STREET
COULD TALK, 1974
THE DEVIL FINDS
WORK, 1976
LITTLE MAN, LITTLE MAN:
A STORY OF CHILDHOOD
(with Yoran Cazac), 1976
JUST ABOVE
MY HEAD, 1979
THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS
NOT SEEN, 1985
PERSPECTIVES; ANGLES
ON AFRICAN ART, 1987
James Arthur Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, August 2, 1924 and grew up in a household headed by a loving mother and an abusive stepfather. At an early age, Baldwin began reading voraciously, devouring entire book catalogs of several local libraries. By the age of 14, he had become a fiery, young minister at the Fireside Pentecostal Church in Harlem and wrote articles for his church and high school magazines. After graduating from high school, he worked as a journalist writing book reviews and essays for the The New Leader, The Nation, Commentary, and Partisan Review.
In 1948, he won a grant from the Rosenwald Fellowship, which enabled him to move to Paris, France that same year.
In 1953, he published his first novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain, partially based on his experiences as a teenage minister in Harlem. His second novel, Giovanni’s Room, centered around a love triangle between two men and a woman living in Paris.
In 1957, he returned to the United States and became a firebrand in the struggle for desegregating Southern schools. He joined forces with Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers and others who spearheaded the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
In 1962, he wrote a scathing and critically acclaimed and prophetic essay entitled, The Fire Next Time about the Black condition and predicted riots and violence in the streets of America. During the JFK Administration, Baldwin organized a historic meeting between Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and various African American notables, including Lorraine Hansberry and Dr. Kenneth Clark, designed to inform the Attorney General of the Black scene in America.
In 1970, he bought a house in the south of France, which became his primary residence. In 1983, Baldwin began teaching Afro-American Studies at Five Colleges of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He taught and lectured at many universities and colleges up until he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in 1987, from which he died on November 30, of that year.
