James Baldwin

James Arthur Balwin was a famous African-American novelist, playwright and political activist. Baldwin was born August 2, 1924 and died December 1, 1987. James’ essays and novels generally tackled topics such as racial, sexual, and class differences in Western society, specifically America.

James Baldwin was born in Harlem, after his mother left his biological father because of rug and alcohol abuse. His mother married a Baptist preacher, David Baldwin, with whom she had eight children. James spent a lot of time alone in the library when he was young, which was how he found his passion for writing. He wrote his first article when he was 13, which he called “Harlem-Then and now”. This article was published in the school’s magazine, the Douglas Pilot.

The first work that Baldwin published in a “real” magazine was a review of the writer Maxim Gorky. He wrote this article for The nation, a magazine that he would keep publishing works in every now and then for the rest of his life. After this, in 1953, Baldwin wrote his first full novel, “Go tell it on the mountain”. Throughout his entire life, Baldwin would keep writing many different types of literary works, including poetry, plays, essays and fiction. His second novel “Giovanni’s room”, was extremely controversial when it was first released in 1956. The novel included a lot of explicit homoerotic content, and as this was way before the gay liberation movement.
Baldwin was a political activist, and therefore focused his novels on injustices in the western world. His novels mostly focused on rights and discrimination for African-Americans and the LGBT.

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