| Product Summary | | Format: Paperback | | ISBN: 9780679744726 | | Publisher: Vintage Books | | Publish Date: 2/1/1993 | | Buy.com Sku: 30118520 | | Item#: R4SJF3 | | Dimensions (in Inches) 5.5H x 5L x 0.25T |
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| | | A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle...all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.
Annotation:
The Modern Library edition of the book that William Styron said shook the conscience of a nation. This is James Baldwin's call for activism "to end the racial nightmare... and change the history of the world." Includes the long essay/sermon "Down at the Cross", his commentary on the rise of the Nation of Islam in America, and an argument against separatism and for self-esteem among blacks. Baldwin also makes the point that Christianity is a form of slavery, originally forced on blacks and eventually embraced by them.
| PraiseSaturday Review
"One wonders why [the author] is so hard on the Apostle Paul, whose stormy career was dedicated to a transracial and transnational concept of love--love on the wide and practical scale--that is not so unlike the ideal commended by Mr. Baldwin. But the author's private views need not close our eyes to his firm, sound stand on the ground of our common humanity, our desperate need of one another. Would that his compelling words might be generally accepted before the fire of racial conflict is allowed to destroy the unfinished business of Emancipation's second century!" - John La Farge 2/2/1963(unknown)
"Baldwin uses words as the sea uses waves, to flow and beat, advance and retreat, rise and take a bow in disappearing....The thought becomes poetry and the poetry illuminates the thought." - Langston Hughes |
| Author Bio| James Baldwin | | James Baldwin was born to an unwed mother who eventually married David Baldwin, an embittered New Orleans preacher; he became the model for Gabriel Grimes in GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN. James cared for his seven siblings, which may have protected him from the realities of the Harlem streets of the 1930s. Instead of hanging out on the streets, James read: everything from Harriet Beecher Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN to Charles Dickens and Horatio Alger. Because of his keen intelligence, he found himself the target of bullying at school, but it also gave him a direction. He joined Countee Cullen's literary club, became the editor of the school's newspaper, and managed to go to De Witt Clinton High School, where he was exposed to stimulating ideas. Upon graduation, Baldwin took a job to help support his family. Deciding to become a writer, he moved from Harlem to Greenwich Village. There he met the author Richard Wright, who awarded him a fellowship. In 1948, Baldwin left America for Paris, where race was less important and where he felt more free to express himself fully. James Baldwin eventually wrote 15 books and co-authored four others, but at the early rejections of his first novel devastated him and started him off on a lifetime of heavy drinking. The strain of being both black and homosexual in a world dominated by white heterosexuals led Baldwin to spend much of his time in Paris, where he lived a penniless bohemian life for years until his books became successful. He became friends with Truman Capote, Saul Bellow, and Jean Genet, though a rift developed in his friendship with Richard Wright and he began a rivalry with Norman Mailer. Deeply committed to the cause of civil rights, Baldwin settled permanently in France in 1970. His works profoundly altered the social and literary consciousness of America. He was the recipient of a Partisan Review fellowship, a National Institute of Arts and Letters award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. |
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