James Baldwin
Category: Arts & Culture
- In full:
- James Arthur Baldwin
- Died:
- December 1, 1987, Saint-Paul, France (aged 63)
- Notable Works:
- “Another Country”
- “Blues for Mister Charlie”
- “Giovanni’s Room”
- “Go Tell It on the Mountain”
- “Going to Meet the Man”
- “If Beale Street Could Talk”
- “Just Above My Head”
- “Nobody Knows My Name”
- “Notes of a Native Son”
- “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone”
- “The Fire Next Time”
- “The Price of the Ticket”
- Role In:
- American civil rights movement
Recent News
Jan. 10, 2024, 2:58 AM ET (CBS)
Art exhibit honors activist James Baldwin, encourages others to stay socially engaged
Top Questions
What is James Baldwin known for?
James Baldwin wrote eloquently, thoughtfully, and passionately on the subject of race in America in novels, essays, and plays. He is perhaps best known for his books of essays, in particular Notes of a Native Son (1955), Nobody Knows My Name (1961), and The Fire Next Time (1963).
What was James Baldwin’s education?
James Baldwin grew up in New York City’s Harlem neighbourhood in an atmosphere of poverty and strict religious observance. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx in 1942 but was otherwise self-taught.
What novels and plays did James Baldwin write?
James Baldwin’s novels included Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Giovanni’s Room (1956), Another Country (1962), and If Beale Street Could Talk (1974; film 2018). He wrote the plays The Amen Corner (1955) and Blues for Mister Charlie (1964).
Where did James Baldwin live?
James Baldwin lived in New York City until 1948, when he moved to Paris. He returned to the United States in 1957, and from 1969 he lived alternately in the south of France and in New York and New England in the U.S.
James Baldwin (born August 2, 1924, New York, New York—died December 1, 1987, Saint-Paul, France) American essayist, novelist, and playwright whose eloquence and passion on the subject of race in America made him an important voice, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the United States and, later, through much of western Europe.
The eldest of nine children, he grew up in poverty in the Black ghetto of Harlem in New York City. From age 14 to 16 he was active during out-of-school hours as a preacher in a small revivalist church, a period he wrote about in his semiautobiographical first and finest novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), and in his play about a woman evangelist, The Amen Corner (performed in New York City, 1965).
Britannica Quiz
Pop Quiz: 17 Things to Know About the American Civil Rights Movement
(Read W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1926 Britannica essay on African American literature.)
After graduation from high school, he began a restless period of ill-paid jobs, self-study, and literary apprenticeship in Greenwich Village, the bohemian quarter of New York City. He left in 1948 for Paris, where he lived for the next eight years. (In later years, from 1969, he became a self-styled “transatlantic commuter,” living alternatively in the south of France and in New York and New England.) His second novel, Giovanni’s Room (1956), deals with the white world and concerns an American in Paris torn between his love for a man and his love for a woman. Between the two novels came a collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son (1955).
In 1957 he returned to the United States and became an active participant in the civil rights struggle that swept the nation. His book of essays, Nobody Knows My Name (1961), explores Black-white relations in the United States. This theme also was central to his novel Another Country (1962), which examines sexual as well as racial issues.
(Read Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s Britannica essay on “Monuments of Hope.”)
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The New Yorker magazine gave over almost all of its November 17, 1962, issue to a long article by Baldwin on the Black Muslim separatist movement and other aspects of the civil rights struggle. The article became a best seller in book form as The Fire Next Time (1963). His bitter play about racist oppression, Blues for Mister Charlie (“Mister Charlie” being a Black term for a white man), played on Broadway to mixed reviews in 1964.
Though Baldwin continued to write until his death—publishing works including Going to Meet the Man (1965), a collection of short stories; the novels Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), and Just Above My Head (1979); and The Price of the Ticket (1985), a collection of autobiographical writings—none of his later works achieved the popular and critical success of his early work.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.
