James Baldwin

Author profile

born

August 06, 1924 in Harlem, New York, The United States

died

November 30, 1987

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry

About this author

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and '60s. The eldest of nine children, his stepfather was a minister. At age 14, Baldwin became a preacher at the small Fireside Pentecostal Church in Harlem. In the early 1940s, he transferred his faith from religion to literature. Critics, however, note the impassioned cadences of Black churches are still evident in his writing. Go Tell It on the Mountain, his first novel, is a partially autobiographical account of his youth. His essay collections Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, and The Fire Next Time w...more

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Books by James Baldwin

Average rating: 4.13 · 30,830 ratings · 2,201 reviews · 81 distinct works

	Go Tell it on the Mountain 3.87 avg rating — 7,224 ratings — published 1953 — 36 editions	My rating:
	Giovanni's Room 4.15 avg rating — 6,860 ratings — published 1956 — 29 editions	My rating:
	The Fire Next Time 4.29 avg rating — 3,866 ratings — published 1963 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Another Country 4.28 avg rating — 3,227 ratings — published 1962 — 23 editions	My rating:
	Notes of a Native Son 4.24 avg rating — 1,855 ratings — published 1955 — 13 editions	My rating:
	If Beale Street Could Talk 4.05 avg rating — 1,420 ratings — published 1974 — 23 editions	My rating:
	Going to Meet the Man 4.28 avg rating — 996 ratings — published 1965 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Sonny's Blues 4.20 avg rating — 1,008 ratings — published 1995 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone 4.11 avg rating — 643 ratings — published 1968 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Nobody Knows My Name 4.22 avg rating — 591 ratings — published 1961 — 4 editions	My rating:

More books by James Baldwin…

Quotes by James Baldwin

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”
― James Baldwin

tags: love

2,989 people liked it

“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, or who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin

tags: books , empathy , pain , reading

1,657 people liked it

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

1,100 people liked it

See all James Baldwin's quotes »

Polls

Which book would you like to see as the selection for our Winter 2011 Group Reads category African American Literature?

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

37 votes 29.6%

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

30 votes 24.0%

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

17 votes 13.6%

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill

10 votes 8.0%

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

7 votes 5.6%

Ain't No Sunshine by Leslie DuBois

7 votes 5.6%

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

6 votes 4.8%

The Kid by Sapphire

5 votes 4.0%

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

4 votes 3.2%

The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate

2 votes 1.6%

125 total votes

3 comments

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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