From one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the past century—a collection of essays, articles, reviews, and interviews that have never before been gathered in a single volume.

“An absorbing portrait of Baldwin’s time—and of him.” —New York Review of Books

James Baldwin was an American literary master, renowned for his fierce engagement with issues haunting our common history. In The Cross of Redemption we have Baldwin discoursing on, among other subjects, the possibility of an African-American president and what it might mean; the hypocrisy of American religious fundamentalism; the black church in America; the trials and tribulations of black nationalism; anti-Semitism; the blues and boxing; Russian literary masters; and the role of the writer in our society.

Prophetic and bracing, The Cross of Redemption is a welcome and important addition to the works of a cosmopolitan and canonical American writer who still has much to teach us about race, democracy, and personal and national identity. As Michael Ondaatje has remarked, “If van Gogh was our nineteenth-century artist-saint, Baldwin [was] our twentieth-century one.”

Toni Morrison's definitive edition of James Baldwin's incomparable nonfiction.

Contains all the major essays collections in their entirety, plus 36 uncollected essays.

James Baldwin was a uniquely prophetic voice in American letters. His brilliant and provocative essays made him the literary voice of the Civil Rights Era, and they continue to speak with powerful urgency to us today, whether in the swirling debate over the Black Lives Matter movement or in the words of Raoul Peck's documentary "I Am Not Your Negro." Edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, the Library of America's Collected Essays is the most comprehensive gathering of Baldwin's nonfiction ever published.

With burning passion and jabbing, epigrammatic wit, Baldwin fearlessly articulated issues of race and democracy and American identity in such famous essays as "The Harlem Ghetto," "Everybody's Protest Novel," "Many Thousands Gone," and "Stranger in the Village." Here are the complete texts of his early landmark collections, Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961), which established him as an essential intellectual voice of his time, fusing in unique fashion the personal, the literary, and the political.

The classic The Fire Next Time (1963), perhaps the most influential of his writings, is his most penetrating analysis of America's racial divide and an impassioned call to "end the racial nightmare...and change the history of the world." The later volumes No Name in the Street (1972) and The Devil Finds Work (1976) chart his continuing response to the social and political turbulence of his era and include his remarkable works of film criticism. A further 36 essays—nine of them previously uncollected—include some of Baldwin's earliest published writings, as well as revealing later insights into the language of Shakespeare, the poetry of Langston Hughes, and the music of Earl Hines.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Here, in a Library of America volume edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, is the fiction that established James Baldwin's reputation as a writer who fused unblinking realism and rare verbal eloquence. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), tells the story, rooted in Baldwin's own experience, of a preacher's son coming of age in 1930's Harlem. Ten years in the writing, its exploration of religious, sexual, and generational conflicts was described by Baldwin as "an attempt to exorcise something, to find out what happened to my father, what happened to all of us." Giovanni's Room (1956) is a searching, and in its day controversial, treatment of the tragic self-delusions of a young American expatriate at war with his own homosexuality. Another Country (1962), a wide-ranging exploration of America's racial and sexual boundaries, depicts the suicide of a gifted jazz musician and its ripple effect on those who knew him. Complex in structure and turbulent in mood, it is in many ways Baldwin's most ambitious novel. Going to Meet the Man (1965) collects Baldwin's short fiction, including the masterful "Sonny's Blues," the unforgettable portrait of a jazz musician struggling with drug addiction in which Baldwin came closest to defining his goal as a writer: "For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness."

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

A deluxe hardcover edition of one of James Baldwin’s most admired works, exploring what it means to be Black in America and his own search for identity

Part of the Beacon Classics series

Originally published in 1955, James Baldwin's timeless and moving essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and African Americans abroad inaugurated him as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes erupting in the United States in the 20th century. Through a mix of autobiographical and analytical essays, Baldwin delivers honest and raw revelations about what it means to be Black in America, specifically pre-Civil Rights Movement, and how, he himself, came to understand the nation.

Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin examines everything from the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of the many Black expatriates of the time, from his home in “The Harlem Ghetto” to a sobering “Journey to Atlanta.” He was one of the few writing on race at the time who addressed the issue with a powerful mixture of outrage at the gross physical and political violence against Black citizens and measured understanding of their oppressors, which helped awaken a white audience to the injustices under their noses.

For fans of Baldwin's well-known works or those new to Baldwin altogether, this celebrated essay collection showcases his extraordinary writing, revolutionary analyses, and prophetic insight into American culture and politics.

*Use discount code SALE at checkout for 30% *

"James Baldwin was born for truth. It called upon him to tell it on the mountains, to preach it in Harlem, to sing it on the Left Bank in Paris. . . . He was a giant." — Maya Angelou

This collectible edition celebrates James Baldwin’s 100th-year anniversary, delving into his years in France and Switzerland

Originally published in Notes of a Native Son, the essays, "Encounter on the Seine: Black Meets Brown," "A Question of Identity," "Equal in Paris," and "Stranger in the Village" will appeal to readers interested in Baldwin's observations as a Black man overseas.

During his transformative time in Europe, Baldwin uncovers what it means to be American, immersing the reader in his life as a foreigner, his troubling encounter with a Parisian prison, and his unprecedented arrival to a tiny Swiss village.

This final collection in the Baldwin centennial anniversary series raises issues of identity, belonging, nationhood, and race within a global context. Encounter on the Seine: Essays showcases Baldwin’s strengths as a storyteller, revealing how his years in Paris transformed his understanding of American identity.

#26 on The Guardian's list of 100 best nonfiction books of all time, the essays explore what it means to be Black in America

In an age of Black Lives Matter, James Baldwin's essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and African Americans abroad are as powerful today as when they were first written. With films like I Am Not Your Negro and the forthcoming If Beale Street Could Talk bringing renewed interest to Baldwin's life and work, Notes of a Native Son serves as a valuable introduction.

Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era. Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin probes the complex condition of being black in America. With a keen eye, he examines everything from the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of the many black expatriates of the time, from his home in “The Harlem Ghetto” to a sobering “Journey to Atlanta.”

Notes of a Native Son inaugurated Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes erupting in the United States in the twentieth century, and many of his observations have proven almost prophetic. His criticism on topics such as the paternalism of white progressives or on his own friend Richard Wright’s work is pointed and unabashed. He was also one of the few writing on race at the time who addressed the issue with a powerful mixture of outrage at the gross physical and political violence against black citizens and measured understanding of their oppressors, which helped awaken a white audience to the injustices under their noses. Naturally, this combination of brazen criticism and unconventional empathy for white readers won Baldwin as much condemnation as praise.

Notes is the book that established Baldwin’s voice as a social critic, and it remains one of his most admired works. The essays collected here create a cohesive sketch of black America and reveal an intimate portrait of Baldwin’s own search for identity as an artist, as a black man, and as an American.

James Baldwin’s final novel is “the work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers” (The New York Times Book Review).

Arthur Montana, celebrated gospel singer, has been found collapsed in a London pub at the age of thirty-nine. His brother, Hall, is left to write the story of his life, his talent, and his great love. Retracing the past three decades of their history, Hall writes with tender passion about the central characters in Arthur’s life: Sister Julia, a “fire-baptized” child evangelist called to the ministry when she was nine, whose life seems considerably less “redeemed” out of the pulpit; and Julia’s brother Jimmy, Arthur’s most gifted accompanist, the catalyst of his success as a singer, and his devoted lover.

An unforgettable epic drama spanning the distance from the Apollo in Harlem to the Olympia in Paris, Just Above My Head is a magnificent tale of personal courage, commitment, and profound love filled with all the lyricism, violence, and compassion that comprise the human condition.

The Evidence of Things Not Seen, award-winning author James Baldwin’s searing 1985 indictment of the nation’s racial stagnation, is contextualized anew by an introduction from New York Times bestselling author and political leader Stacey Abrams.

In this essential work, James Baldwin examines the Atlanta child murders that took place over twenty-two months in 1979 and 1980. Examining this incident with a reporter’s skill and an essayist’s insight, he notes the significance of Atlanta as the site of these brutal killings—a city that claimed to be “too busy to hate”—and the permeation of race throughout the case: the Black administration in Atlanta; the murdered Black children; and Wayne Williams, the Black man tried for the crimes. In Baldwin’s hands, this specific set of events has transcended its era and remains as relevant today as ever.

Rummaging through the ruins of American race relations, Baldwin addresses all the hard-to-face issues that have brought us to a moment in history when we are forced to reckon with some of the country’s most ingrained, foundational issues and when, too often, public officials fail to ask real questions about “justice for all.” In this, his last book, Baldwin also reveals his optimistic faith in America’s ability to move toward repair: “This is the only nation in the world that can hope to liberate—to begin to liberate—mankind from the strangling idea of the national identity and the tyranny of the territorial dispute. I know this sounds remote, now, and that I will not live to see anything resembling this hope come to pass. Yet, I know that I have seen it—in fire and blood and anguish, true, but I have seen it. I speak with the authority of the issue of the slave born in the country once believed to be: the last best hope of earth.”

Includes If Beale Street Could Talk, now a major motion picture directed by Barry Jenkins.

The Library of America completes its edition of the collected fiction of the literary voice of the Civil Rights era with this volume gathering three revealing later works of the 1960s and ’70s.

With such landmark novels as Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, and the essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin established himself as the indispensable voice of the Civil Rights era, a figure whose prophetic exploration of the racial and sexual fissures in American society raised the consciousness of American readers. But by the late 1960s and ’70s many regarded Baldwin as being out of sync with the political and social currents transforming America: too integrationist for Black Arts Movement writers and others on the Left, yet too “pessimistic” for many white readers, and as a result his later novels have never received the consideration given his earlier fiction. Sober in outlook but ambitious in scope, these works show Baldwin responding with his signature passion—for music, for justice, for life—and searching intelligence to the new realities of a rapidly changing cultural landscape, as the Movement era gives way to the age of identity politics that we still live in today. This culminating volume in the Library of America edition of his fiction illustrates how Baldwin continues to be relevant in twenty-first-century America, especially in his dramatizing of the unequal treatment of black men by the police and the justice system, his nuanced depictions of the black family, and his explorations of sexuality.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Portrayals of James Baldwin and others in his circle highlight the iconic writer’s activism

The American writer and activist James Baldwin (1924–87) considered himself a “witness” as he challenged perspectives on America and its history through his work. He was often recognized for speaking out against injustice when other like-minded artists, collaborators and organizers were overshadowed or silenced. By bringing together artworks that feature James Baldwin alongside portraits of other key figures who had an impact on his life, This Morning, This Evening, So Soon situates Baldwin among a pantheon of culture bearers who were instrumental in shaping his life and legacy, particularly in relationship to his advocacy for gay rights. The book accompanies an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, curated by the National Portrait Gallery's Director of Curatorial Affairs, Rhea L. Combs, in consultation with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Hilton Als. Well-known portraits by Beauford Delaney and Bernard Gotfryd are shown alongside paintings, photographs and films representing key figures in Baldwin’s circle. By viewing Baldwin in this context of community, readers will come to understand how Baldwin’s sexuality and faith, artistic curiosities and notions of masculinity―coupled with his involvement in the civil rights movement―helped shape his writing and long-lasting legacy.
The book relies on portraiture to explore the interwoven lives of Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry (writer and activist), Barbara Jordan (lawyer, educator and politician), Bayard Rustin (leader in social movements), Lyle Ashton Harris (artist), Essex Hemphill (poet and activist), Marlon Riggs (filmmaker, poet and activist) and Nina Simone (singer-songwriter, pianist and activist), among others.
Artists include: Richard Avedon, Glenn Ligon, Donald Moffett, Beauford Delaney, Bernard Gotfryd, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson, Jack Whitten.