The first James Baldwin book I read was The Fire Next Time. I read it during the pandemic at my grandparents’ apartment for a change of scenery, a paper-thin copy in hand. I remembered reading it under a fluorescent lamp, underlining almost every line, the words flowing quickly. I finished the book in one sitting and wondered how I had been transported into such a different world and mindset through the words of an author I barely knew.
Even if you claim you have never read or listened to James Baldwin, I assure you have in some way or another. James Baldwin was a writer and civil rights activist, best known for his semi-autobiographical novels and plays that center on race, politics, and sexuality. He is known for his ideas about fluid sexuality, masculinity, and race, and his spoken voice is very well known in interviews and documentaries that have circulated social media in the latter years. The succinct 20-something minute documentary, “Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris,” was further shortened into a clip on YouTube, which, in turn, reignited my love for the writer. In one specific moment, Baldwin shared:
“Love has never been a popular movement, and no one’s ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people.”
The camera zoomed up on his face, capturing the sincerity in his eyes, and I felt the same warmth in my chest as I did when I read his works for the first time.
What about James Baldwin conjures such powerful feelings and images in many of his readers? Some would say it is the history behind Baldwin’s journey as an author. As a writer born in the 1920s who began to write in the 40s, Baldwin explored theories and thought that no other author at the time was imagining.
He wrote extensively about experiences of race in Harlem in a semi-autographical fashion and shared his own experience of the Pentecostal church in Go Tell It on the Mountain and Notes of a Native Son. He also wrote about sexuality, gender, and masculinity in Giovanni’s Room, as if he was stripping down the layers of everything that had been constructed about himself and his identities. It was a letter about his upbringing in Harlem, his family, and his experiences in the church.
Giovanni’s Room is the second Baldwin book I ever read and is a particular favourite of mine. I was most surprised by the beauty and honesty of the book, which combines pain, anger and suffering into human touch and love. The characters are often angry with each other, and still, a tenderness to Baldwin’s prose and narration intrigues and compels the reader to proceed with this tragic tale of identity and internalised hatred. The main characters in this novel are not good people, but their humanity moved me through their relationship in the novel, most of which took place in Giovanni’s bedroom, hence the title.
All his works carry the theme of humanity, regardless of the content or the medium. Baldwin brings sincerity and intensity to his work — honest in a way that has been scarcely recreated. As someone who no longer lives in their home country, I retrospectively appreciate the care and attention with which Baldwin writes about Harlem.
While I could criticise Baldwin for excluding Black characters in his queer novel and running away to a white man’s country (France and other European countries), I have come to understand his decision. He did not leave America for the art, culture, or finer tastes of Europe; he went out of survival. As he said in an interview for the 1984 edition of the Paris Review: “It wasn’t so much a matter of choosing France — it was a matter of getting out of America.”
Similarly, maybe he did not write Giovanni’s Room as a White novel for the novelty of whiteness, but because there was no other way to navigate queer identities and gender, as he was. As someone who experiences the concept of sexuality and masculinity in a very similar way, I understand the desire to distill into just one thing so that you can fully understand.
Baldwin’s words paint a familiar picture for myself and other immigrants; the ones who get out for a chance at a better life, leaving a country that has led to indiscriminate damage. You still carry it with you, in your heart.
Baldwin said, in the same Paris Review interview: “You’ve been beaten, and it’s been deliberate. The whole society has decided to make you nothing. And they don’t even know they’re doing it.”
Before passing away in 1987 at 63, he continued to write about race in America with such vigour and precision that it continues to inspire and evoke strong feelings in readers today. Even if you have never read Baldwin explicitly, his memory and words live on in the practice of writing and literature.
James Baldwin is an incredibly important figure to know within the history of African American literature. He has not always been remembered for it, but his writings on the experience and intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality were revolutionary. The term intersectionality did not quite exist at the time, and Baldwin was never able to write a novel that encapsulated the Queer, Black experience, but I imagine he would be quite proud of those who live it and write about it today.
Baldwin to many, including myself, represents possibilities and innovation. A new way of being, and every time I read one of his novels, I learn something new. Here’s to the words which may never get old. Here’s to James Baldwin.
1 James Baldwin | National Museum of African American History and Culture. James Baldwin (1924–1987). (n.d.). Source Link
2 Terence Dixon, Released by Impact Films. (1972). Meeting the Man: James Baldwin In Paris.
3 An introduction to James Baldwin . National Museum of African American History and Culture. (n.d.). Source Link
4 Elgrably, J. (3AD). James Baldwin, the Art of Fiction No. 78. The Paris Review. Source Link
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