Giovanni's Room

James Baldwin’s groundbreaking novel whose frank exploration of sexuality and self-acceptance was decades ahead of its time—named one of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the past 100 years

“Baldwin writes . . . with unusual candor and yet with such dignity and intensity.”—The New York Times

In 1950s Paris, a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. David has just proposed marriage to his American girlfriend, but while she is away on a trip he becomes involved in a doomed affair with a bartender named Giovanni. With sharp, probing insight, James Baldwin’s classic novel delves into the mysteries of love and tells a deeply moving story that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.