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James Baldwin
Author of Go Tell it on the Mountain, Baldwin was a minority within a minority as a gay black man. This series examines the lives of gay and lesbian writers and the struggles many of them have endured.
149 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1978
4 people are currently reading
127 people want to read
About the author
Randall Kenan
25 books272 followersRandall Kenan's first novel, A Visitation of Spirits was published by Grove Press in 1989; and a collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, was published in 1992 by Harcourt, Brace. That collection was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was among The New York Times Notable Books of 1992. He was also the author of a young adult biography of James Baldwin (1993), and wrote the text for Norman Mauskoff=s book of photographs, A Time Not Here: The Mississippi Delta (1997). Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1999, and was nominated for the Southern Book Award.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1963, and spent his childhood in Chinquapin, North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a B.A. in English in 1985. From 1985 to 1989 he worked on the editorial staff of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, publishers. In 1989 he began teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. He was the first William Blackburn Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University in the fall of 1994, and the Edourd Morot-Sir Visiting Professor of Creating Writing at his alma mater in 1995. He was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford (1997-98),Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Memphis, and held the Lehman-Brady Professorship at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. He has also taught urban literature at Vassar College.
He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Sherwood Anderson Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, and was the 1997 Rome Prize winner from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Kenan passed away in August 2020, just after his short story collection "If I Had Two Wings" was published.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1963, and spent his childhood in Chinquapin, North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a B.A. in English in 1985. From 1985 to 1989 he worked on the editorial staff of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, publishers. In 1989 he began teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. He was the first William Blackburn Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University in the fall of 1994, and the Edourd Morot-Sir Visiting Professor of Creating Writing at his alma mater in 1995. He was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford (1997-98),Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Memphis, and held the Lehman-Brady Professorship at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. He has also taught urban literature at Vassar College.
He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Sherwood Anderson Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, and was the 1997 Rome Prize winner from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Kenan passed away in August 2020, just after his short story collection "If I Had Two Wings" was published.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 7, 2021
A detailed looked into the life of an American original. The language is accessible for all ages without heroics. Ideal for anyone trying to explain civil rights to younger audiences
August 21, 2017
A great introduction to the life and writings of James Baldwin. It's not exhaustive, but it gave me enough information to check out his writings, and to make me wish I had met him.
June 22, 2021
Summer Bingo 2021 - biography
June 22, 2017
Rosset has done an excellent job of presenting a comprehensive picture of James Baldwin's life. Presented in a series for young adults (Library of Congress gives it that "juvenile literature" label) it is also a full picture of the times especially emphasizing his involvement in the the Civil Rights movement. Excellent photos accompany almost every page. Baldwin's homosexuality is referred to, though no personal relationships are mentioned. His literary achievements as a novelist, essayist, playwright and poet are covered as well as why he and Richard Wright had a falling out. For all readers interested in James Baldwin, this is a great starting point and would encourage them to seek out his work.
August 13, 2025
This biography is a must-read for anybody, who wants to dive into and analyze Baldwin's work (books and/or essays).
It's been a year since I've been on this road of discovery, and I regret not reading this as a preparatory assignment. I can undoubtedly affirm that I appreciate and comprehend Baldwin in a new respect and regard.
Just a thought: Although I always keep Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. in my thoughts, I'm elated that James made it out alive and lived a life worth living (at least, and perhaps, the last 20 years of his life).
It's been a year since I've been on this road of discovery, and I regret not reading this as a preparatory assignment. I can undoubtedly affirm that I appreciate and comprehend Baldwin in a new respect and regard.
Just a thought: Although I always keep Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. in my thoughts, I'm elated that James made it out alive and lived a life worth living (at least, and perhaps, the last 20 years of his life).
July 31, 2010
I enjoyed it quite a lot, but I'm a really big fan of James Baldwin.
September 7, 2015
This is a beautiful account of one writer's life and how he literally had to leave America to feel like an American.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews