No Name in the Street

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A short, powerful memoir from one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century In this deeply personal book, Baldwin reflects on the experiences that shaped him as a writer and activist- from his childhood in Harlem to the deaths Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Exploring the visceral reality of life in the American South as well as Baldwin's impressions of London, Paris and Hamburg, No Name in the Street grapples with the failed promises of global liberation movements in fearless, candid prose. Timeless, tender and profound, Baldwin's searing narrative contains the multiplicities of what it means to be Black in America and, indeed, around the world.

Reviews

He was one of our best essayists in the best American gadfly tradition -- Ralph Ellison
What makes his essays so compelling is that he insists on being personal, on forcing the public and the political to submit to his voice and the test of his experience and his observation -- Colm Tibn
If Van Gogh was our 19th century artist-saint then James Baldwin is our 20th century one -- Michael Ondaatje
Baldwin refused to hold anyones hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you -- Ta-Nehisi Coates

Author Bio

James Baldwin was born in 1924 in New York. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), which evokes his experiences as a boy preacher in Harlem, was an immediate success. Baldwin's second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956) has become a landmark of gay literature and Another Country (1962) caused a literary sensation. His searing essay collections Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961) contain many of the works that made him an influential figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Baldwin published several other collections of non-fiction, including The Fire Next Time (1963) and No Name in the Street (1972). His short stories are collected in Going to Meet the Man (1965). His later works include the novels Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979). James Baldwin won a number of literary fellowships- a Eugene F. Saxon Memorial Trust Award, a Rosenwald Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Partisan Review Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant. He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1986. He died in 1987 in France