In the centenary of his birth year, the author’s voice is as necessary, human and sharp as ever in a reprinted short story collection and memoir from the 1960s and 70s
James Baldwin, gone these past 37 years, is back. In truth he never went away. In the centenary year of his birth (2 August 1924), with reissues of his short story collection Going to Meet the Man (1965), and the autobiographical work No Name in the Street (1972), along with staged readings of his famous essays, rereleases of myriad documentaries and literary festival panels interrogating his wide influence, from his scintillating oratory to being a queer black style icon, the man is born again. Imprinted on our consciousness are those big, wide-awake eyes on the lookout for trouble but hoping for love, the mischievous, gap-toothed grin of gossip and delight, the rich gravitas of his voice, as foreboding as thunder but often edged with humour and always humane – all signifiers of the distilled wisdom and passion of his writing.
From close to 7,000 pages of published work that emerged from his capacious mind, two convictions emerge most strongly: the danger of being “at the mercy of the reflexes the colour of one’s skin caused in other people”; and, second, that “to be a negro in [the US] and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost all of the time”.
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