Going To Meet The Man

The best of the stories are equal to the novels: try the title story, about the radicalisation of a white boy at a lynching, or the exceptional Sonny’s Blues, where a man copes with his brother’s addiction to heroin * The Times *His prose emits a long piercing scream as it takes off from the page like a fighter jet on a mission to drop a payload of explosive truths across enemy territory, flying fast and low, risking hostile and friendly fire – Colin Grant * Guardian *The stories carry Baldwin’s depth of sympathy … Only a reader with a heart of stone will fail to be moved to tears of recognition, sorrow and joy when [‘Sonny’s Blues’] reaches its conclusion * Guardian *Praise for James Baldwin * - *If Van Gogh was our 19th century artist-saint then James Baldwin is our 20th century one – Michael OndaatjeBaldwin refused to hold anyone’s hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you – Ta-Nehisi Coates

James Baldwin was born in 1924 in New York. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), which evokes his experiences as a boy preacher in Harlem, was an immediate success. Baldwin’s second novel, Giovanni’s Room (1956) has become a landmark of gay literature and Another Country (1962) caused a literary sensation. His searing essay collections Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961) contain many of the works that made him an influential figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Baldwin published several other collections of non-fiction, including The Fire Next Time (1963) and No Name in the Street (1972). His short stories are collected in Going to Meet the Man (1965). His later works include the novels Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979). James Baldwin won a number of literary fellowships- a Eugene F. Saxon Memorial Trust Award, a Rosenwald Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Partisan Review Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant. He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1986. He died in 1987 in France.

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