Celebrating the humanity and pathos of James Baldwin

James Baldwin has been praised for writing one of the greatest English language novels, “Go Tell It on the Mountain”.  A gay, Black civil and human rights activist, Baldwin wrote essays calling for human equality and became a well-known public figure and orator, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States. Baldwin became equally famous for his essays and political writing, which spanned the gamut of from race to sexuality, love to jazz, and addiction to identity politics, all of which remain as contentious and relevant today as they were when they were first published.

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

Both Baldwin’s fiction and essays speak simply and directly, sporting wry observations on the human condition and the cyclical dilemma of history where our refusal to listen to those who came before us dooms us to repeat all of their mistakes. His writings continue effortlessly to draw our attention to our interconnectedness and our dependency on one another for our collective liberation – that no one can truly be free until we are all free from oppression, self-censorship and fear, with practical guidance that at times seems to echo the Stoic philosophers of Ancient Rome. There was some common connection between the philosophy of Roman philosopher-slave Epictetus and the Black writers of twentieth-century America, a certain pragmatism in the face of unavoidable but not unassailable adversity that seems more relevant than ever in the chaos we face today.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

Celebrate the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth by reading some of his classic works, available now from the University Library. Click on a title for the full catalogue record and on the classmark for a floor plan showing where the book is shelved in the Library:

• A dialogue 813.54 BAL
• Another country 813.54 BAL
  
• Go tell it on the mountain 813.54 BAL
  
• Notes of a native son 813.54 BAL
  
• Nobody knows my name: more notes of a native son 813.54 BAL
  
• The fire next time 305.896073 BAL
  
• Giovanni’s room 813.54 BAL
  
• Going to meet the man 813.54/BAL
  
• Tell me how long the train’s been gone 813.54 BAL
  
• The devil finds work: an essay 814.54 BAL
  

You can also read one of his famous short stories, “Sonny Blues”, for free online, courtesy of Forbes magazine.

Image credit: Sjakkelien Vollebregt, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons