A Historical Guide to James Baldwin (Historical Guides to American Authors) - Softcover

Field, Douglas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195366549 ISBN 13: 9780195366549

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2009

Synopsis

With contributions from major scholars of African American literature, history, and cultural studies, A Historical Guide to James Baldwin focuses on the four tumultous decades that defined the great author's life and art. Providing a comprehensive examination of Baldwin's varied body of work that includes short stories, novels, and polemical essays, this collection reflects the major events that left an indelible imprint on the iconic writer: civil rights, black nationalism and the struggle for gay rights in the pre- and post-Stonewall eras. The essays also highlight Baldwin's under-studied role as a trans-Atlantic writer, his lifelong struggle with faith, and his use of music, especially the blues, as a key to unlock the mysteries of his identity as an exile, an artist, and a black American in a racially hostile era.

About this title

About the Author:

Douglas Field is Lecturer in Contemporary Literature, Staffordshire University, UK and he is the book review editor for Callaloo.

Review:

"A Historical Guide to James Baldwin is welcome and timely. It caps a decade of renewed
interest in this major twentieth-century figure and sets the terms of debate for the decade
to come. Moreover, as a Baldwin scholar and a student in an undergraduate seminar on
Baldwin, we can testify to how it speaks to scholars at all levels and lends itself to course
adoption...This collection belongs on the shelf of any Baldwin scholar, student, or aficionado." --Brian Norman and Lauren A. Wilson, Callaloo

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0195366549
• ISBN 13: 9780195366549
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272