James Baldwin

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic, and one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the postwar era. His nonfiction collections—most notably Notes of a Native Son (1955) and The Fire Next Time (1963), and novels, including Giovanni's Room (1956) and Another Country (1962), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in mid-twentieth-century America. A Harlem, New York, native, he primarily made his home in the south of France.