Baldwin's Harlem
A Biography of James Baldwin
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Publisher Description
Baldwin's Harlem is an intimate
portrait of the life and genius of one
of our most brilliant literary minds:
James Baldwin.
Perhaps no other writer is as synonymous with Harlem as James Baldwin (1924-1987). The events there that shaped his youth greatly influenced Baldwin's work, much of which focused on his experiences as a black man in white America. Go Tell It on the Mountain, The Fire Next Time, Notes of a Native Son, and Giovanni's Room are just a few of his classic fiction and nonfiction books that remain an essential part of the American canon.
In Baldwin's Harlem, award-winning journalist Herb Boyd combines impeccable biographical research with astute literary criticism, and reveals to readers Baldwin's association with Harlem on both metaphorical and realistic levels. For example, Boyd describes Baldwin's relationship with Harlem Renaissance poet laureate Countee Cullen, who taught Baldwin French in the ninth grade. Packed with telling anecdotes, Baldwin's Harlem illuminates the writer's diverse views and impressions of the community that would remain a consistent presence in virtually all of his writing.
Baldwin's Harlem provides an intelligent and enlightening look at one of America's most important literary enclaves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although James Baldwin (1924 1987) left his native Harlem as a young man and returned only for occasional visits, the New York neighborhood was a recurring theme in his essays and novels, and critics often claimed that the noted African-American writer exploited its squalor. His junior high French teacher was luminary Countee Cullen, who may have inspired Baldwin's later Paris sojourn and his first literary efforts, and Baldwin shared a stormy relationship with another Harlem Renaissance progenitor, poet Langston Hughes, who called Another Country juvenile. Baldwin shared a distrust of white liberals with Malcolm X and lent his powerful voice to Harlem's '60s causes, including a rent-strike rally and defense of the Harlem Six put on trial for the brutal murder of a Jewish shopkeeper. Longtime Harlem resident Boyd, managing editor of Black World Today, is authoritative, but in his self-proclaimed role as Baldwin's defender, he gives short shrift to the writer's homosexuality and comes across as rationalizing the anti-Semitism Baldwin was repeatedly accused of in his lifetime. The literary critiques of Baldwin's writings and other details render this volume primarily of interest to scholars of African-American studies
