- Born
- 2 August 1924New York City, USA
- Died
- 1 December 1987Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France · aged 63
James Baldwin
A writer whose accounts of race, sexuality and belonging confronted the stories America told about itself.
James Baldwin was born in New York City in 1924. He grew up in Harlem and preached as a teenager before leaving the church and committing himself to writing. Its language and moral urgency nevertheless remained audible in his work.
In 1948 he moved to Paris, seeking distance from American racism and room to write. “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1953) drew on his religious upbringing. “Giovanni’s Room” (1956), about an American man’s love for another man in Paris, challenged expectations both of Black writers and of how same-sex desire could be represented.
Baldwin returned repeatedly to the United States during the civil rights movement. Through essays, speeches and personal involvement, he confronted racial violence and the evasions that sustained it. “The Fire Next Time” (1963) joined historical analysis to an intimate appeal for change.
His sexuality could bring hostility even within political movements, but he resisted being reduced to a single label. Love and the courage to recognise another person remained recurring concerns. He later settled in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in southern France, where he died of cancer in 1987, aged 63.