James Baldwin

A Biography

David Leeming

• Publisher: Arcade
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781628724387
• eBook ISBN: 9781628724691
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Artist Biographies
• Index: Literature

James Baldwin was one of the great writers of the last century. In works that have become part of the American canon—Go Tell It on a Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, and The Evidence of Things Not Seen—he explored issues of race and racism in America, class distinction, and sexual difference. A gay, African American writer who was born in Harlem, he found the freedom to express himself living in exile in Paris. When he returned to America to cover the Civil Rights movement, he became an activist and controversial spokesman for the movement, writing books that became bestsellers and made him a celebrity, landing him on the cover of Time.

In this biography, which Library Journal called “indispensable,” David Leeming creates an intimate portrait of a complex, troubled, driven, and brilliant man. He plumbs every aspect of Baldwin’s life: his relationships with the unknown and the famous, including painter Beauford Delaney, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, and childhood friend Richard Avedon; his expatriate years in France and Turkey; his gift for compassion and love; the public pressures that overwhelmed his quest for happiness, and his passionate battle for black identity, racial justice, and to “end the racial nightmare and achieve our country.”

Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1 The Harlem Life
• 2 Bill Miller
• 3 Awakenings
• 4 Beauford Delaney
• 5 Probings
• 6 The Expatriate
• 7 Lucien and the Mountain
• 8 Go Tell It on the Mountain
• 9 The Search for Giovanni
• 10 Notes of a Native Son
• 11 The Amen Corner
• 12 A Period of Transition
• 13 Giovanni’s Room
• 14 End of an Era
• 15 The Journey South
• 16 The Call of the Stage
• 17 Sermons and Blues
• 18 In Search of a Role
• 19 Nobody Knows My Name
• 20 Another Country
• 21 Africa and The Fire Next Time
• 22 The Activist
• 23 Blues for Mister Charlie
• 24 Lucien and the White Problem
• 25 Searching for a New Life
• 26 Istanbul
• 27 Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone
• 28 One Day, When I Was Lost
• 29 No Name in the Street
• 30 If Beale Street Could Talk
• 31 The Devil Finds Work
• 32 Just Above My Head
• 33 The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Remember This House
• 34 Gathering Around the Welcome Table
• Notes
• Chronological Bibliography of Printed Works by James Baldwin