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Go Tell It on the Mountain | Author Biography

James Baldwin was born in 1924 in Harlem, New York City. Many of the details in the life of John, the main character in Go Tell It on the Mountain, parallel facts in Baldwin's own life. He was an awkward, gangly boy who suffered the abuse of his stepfather, a laborer and storefront preacher who had moved to New York from New Orleans. In contrast to the squalor and anger that he experienced at home, Baldwin was a resounding success at Public School 24 and at Frederick Douglass Junior High School, where his teachers recognized his brilliance and verbal skills. At age fourteen, he, like John, experienced a religious conversion during the service at his church, the Mount Calvary of the Pentecostal Faith Church.

James Baldwin

After that, Baldwin became a preacher himself, and throughout high school he addressed the congregation at the local storefront church at least once each week. After high school he worked briefly in New Jersey, and then moved to Greenwich Village, the section of New York City that was a famous gathering place for artists. For five years he worked menial jobs and published short pieces in intellectual magazines such as The Nation, The Partisan Review, The New Leader, and Commentary.

With the help of famed African-American author Richard Wright Baldwin received the Eugene F. Saxton Memorial Trust Award for financial help while writing his first novel. In November 1948 he sailed to France and he never lived in America again, although he traveled here frequently on speaking engagements. He felt that America was too socially oppressive, both because he was black and because he was homosexual.

Go Tell It on the Mountain, his first novel, was published in 1953, and it gained immediate popularity among American intellectuals, establishing Baldwin as one of the keenest observers of the American racial situation. None of the other seven novels he wrote is considered to have been as successful, possibly because they sublimated storytelling to their message. From the early 1940s to his death in 1987, Baldwin was recognized as a master of the personal essay. Several of his pieces, compiled in such collections as Notes of a Native Son (1955), The Fire Next Time (1963) and The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948-1985 have created a lasting effect on American social life, particularly in the area of race relations. James Baldwin died of cancer in 1987, at his home in the south of France.

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1. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Introduction
2. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Summary
   1. Part I Summary
   2. Part II Summary
   3. Part III Summary
3. Go Tell It on the Mountain: James Baldwin Biography
4. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Characters
5. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Themes
6. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Style
7. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Historical Context
8. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Critical Overview
9. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Essays and Criticism
   1. The Variety of Narrative Voices in Go Tell It on the Mountain
   2. Race and Art James Baldwin
   3. A review of Go Tell It on the Mountain
   4. The Ironic Voice in Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain
10. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Compare and Contrast
11. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Topics for Further Study
12. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Media Adaptations
13. Go Tell It on the Mountain: What Do I Read Next?
14. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Bibliography and Further Reading
15. Go Tell It on the Mountain: Pictures
16. Copyright

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