James Baldwin
American writer and civil rights activist
James Baldwin was an American writer and civil rights activist who wrote essays, novels, plays and poems. He is the author of The Fire Next Time.
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Born 1924 in Harlem, New York, United States Died 1987
About James Baldwin
James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, in 1924, the eldest of nine children. At 14 he preached at a small Pentecostal church in Harlem, and in the early 1940s he turned from religion to literature. From 1948 he lived mainly in the south of France, though he came back to the United States to lecture and teach. His 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain and his 1955 essay collection Notes of a Native Son are among his best-known works, and Giovanni's Room followed in 1956. The Fire Next Time is one of his books from the era of the civil rights movement, during which he was a prominent public speaker. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was nominated for the National Book Award.