James Baldwin was a celebrated twentieth century African-American literary figure. He was a versatile writer who wrote as a social critic, essayist, playwright and a novelist. He is still regarded in a high stature for his insightful works like Another Country, The Devil Finds Work and The Fire Next Time.
A grandson of a slave, James Arthur Baldwin was born on August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York. His mother got divorced when his birth father started abusing drugs and later married to his adoptive father, David Baldwin, a preacher. He took care of his siblings from a very young age and was treated harshly by his father. He received his early education from DeWitt Clinton High School where he also served as an editor for a school magazine. He produced a number of sophisticated plays, short stories and poems for the magazine.
In his youth he used to attend church regularly given his tough life and soon become a junior minister at the Fireside Pentecostal Assembly. Years after he left the church and religion behind. However, his writings and outlook on life was highly influenced by his church learning. He reproved Christianity for being the causative of oppressing blacks. Although he never proclaimed himself to be an atheist, he tried to work secularism as an angle for freedom.
During his time in Greenwich Village, he become friends with a famous writer Richard Wright and started off working on his debut novel. His mature and polished writing was recognized by several periodicals. He managed to publish his poem, short stories and essays in Commentary, The Nation and Partisan Review. In 1948, disillusioned and disappointed by prejudice against homosexuals and blacks he left U.S. for Paris as he himself was gay. His relocation provided him with the opportunity to write more freely about his personal experiences of racial discrimination. Moreover, he claimed in an interview to newspaper that his immigrating to France drew a separate timeline which he called “transatlantic commuter”.
Baldwin’s debut fiction work, Go Tell It on the Mountain, is a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1953. It is about a youth living in Harlem who tries to deal with issues of an abusive father and religion. This novel is Baldwin’s attempt to come to terms with his own problems that his protagonist faced in the book. The second novel, Giovanni’s Room, was published in 1955. It centers on an American immigrant in France which is similar to Baldwin’s case. The complexity of the novel is its focus on a tabooed subject during that period that is homosexuality. He also penned a play The Amen Corner, about storefront church which was later staged at Broadway.
The reputation Baldwin has earned as an eminent literary figure of his time was for his essay writing. He used his first-hand experience as a black in America to illustrate the hardships faced by his race. His notable essays are Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961). He produced The Fire Next Time, a collection of essays in which he sketched a true-to-life picture of dynamics of the two races; whites and blacks. He appealed to both the races to make individual efforts to free themselves from racial differences and help each other. His other distinguished literary works include, Blues for Mister Charlie, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone and The Evidence of Things Not Seen. James Baldwin passed away on December 1, 1987 suffering from esophageal cancer.