Baldwin, James (Vol. 3) - Baldwin, James 1924–
Baldwin, James 1924–
A celebrated Black American essayist, novelist, and critic, Baldwin explores in precise and imaginative prose the quality of Black suffering in contemporary society. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)
During the last few years James Baldwin has emerged as a national figure, the leading intellectual spokesman for the Negroes, whose … essays, as in The Fire Next Time, reach heights of passionate exhortation unmatched in modern American writing. Whatever his ultimate success or failure as a novelist, Baldwin has already secured his place as one of the two or three greatest essayists this country has ever produced. He has brought a new luster to the essay as an art form, a form with possibilities for discursive reflection and concrete drama which make it a serious competitor to the novel, until recently almost unchallenged as the dominant literary genre in our time. Apparently drawing upon...
[The entire page is 1890 words long]
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