James Baldwin: Collected Essays (Loa #98): Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds

This collection of Baldwin's writings is priceless because not only is it a showcase of an agile and fertile mind, it also brings together in a single volume some of his most popular and more famous as well as some of his less formal writings and speeches. Always well ahead of his times, Baldwin's essays remain fresh and as relevant in today's more quiescent racial times as they were during the more troubled times of his life. They remain fresh because they tell in Baldwin's own inimical and elegant way, the deeper truths about our troubled racial past and present. Most of all they reflect how Baldwin used his quick and restless mind to critique the social and artistic scenes of our troubled era: His strategy, reflected in this collection, was always to mine the substance from the subtext upwards. Those of us who try to mimic his techniques can learn a lot from this and the companion volume of his collected works. At the same time, Baldwin's psychological analysis remains unerring and at least as sharp as, if not sharper than those of some of his French contemporaries, including his friends and compatriots in the struggle, Franz Fanon and Jean Paul Sartre, who also were both not only revolutionaries and revolutionary thinkers like Baldwin, but also a Psychiatrist and a Philosopher, respectively. No library on the history of race in America or France is complete without this well designed and well-organized volume. Five stars.

A lot of reviewers have talked about owning this book if you are distinctly interested in collecting works by black authors or in black studies. I think that this book is an essential element to anyone's library, in particular people interested in the craft of writing. Toni Morrison calls Baldwin the greatest essayist of the 20th century and I couldn't agree more. In this collection of essays, it becomes clear that Baldwin has truly perfected the craft of the essay. Not only is Baldwin's content, his concepts of honesty and truth, of light and dark, right and wrong, of white and black, and much more straight up revolutionary, but he manages to have his content reflected in the craft and style of each essay, which should really be the goal of all writers. More than anything, Baldwin has an exquisite ability to reveal a complex truth in a simple concise way. All of these essays, indeed all of Baldwin's works, have one common thread. And that is that TRUTH is found within contradiction, because contradiction is honest. I think anyone who browses this page should immediately try and at least check this out of their libary (though it's definitely worth owning, every time I reread it I discover new things) because it really will effect you in meaningful ways.

In Egypt, I met an extraordinary American. "I was born in New York, but have only lived in pockets of it. In Paris, I lived in all parts of the city - on the Right Bank and on the Left, among the bourgeoisie and among les miserables, and knew all kinds of people from pimps and prostitutes in Pigalle to Egyptian bankers in Nueilly. This may sound unprincipled or even obscurely immoral: I found it healthy. I love to talk to people, all kinds of people, and almost everyone, as I hope we still know, loves a man who loves to listen," he said. "The perpetual dealing with people very different from myself caused a shattering in me of preconceptions I scarcely knew I held. This reassessment, which can be very painful, is also very valuable." His name is Mr. Baldwin, and I cherish this new acquaintance because his ideas have had such profound impact on my views of Egypt. I wanted to know the people, but as I reach out for them, sometimes, I'm shocked by what I see. I see people sleeping on the concrete patios along the Nile - many of them have migrated from the farmlands because they can make more money for their families if they work in Cairo. But desert nights can be bitter cold in January, and it cuts my heart. Yet, Mr. Baldwin's message is well heeded. The same problems of inner city growth that come with development in Egypt also came with development in Britain one hundred years ago. American inner city schools and slums still reflect this challenge. Would I have walked into the slums of Chicago if I were there? Would I have strolled through the southwest side of Kansas City or east St. Louis? Would I have walked into the anti-developing city blocks of L.A. if I were in America? Of course not. So why is it that traveling abroad opens my eyes to poverty in America? Why couldn't I see it when I was there? I don't know why this happens, but James Baldwin was right - absolutely right when he said that this reassessment, which can be very painful is also very valuable. I have been told that the housing shortage in Egypt provided the impetus for many people to move into the spacious mausoleums in the old city graveyard. The international visitors call it, "The City of the Dead," and tourists go there and gawk at poverty creating a makeshift freak show out of human suffering. Then I learned that the housing shortage in Los Angeles provided the impetus for many people to move into mausoleums, but no one goes to gawk at them. In fact, there seems to be a kind of American denial that such things could ever happen in the land of milk and honey. As I hear of people talking about human rights violations in Egypt, I think of the title of James Baldwin's book: Nobody Knows My Name. I think of James Byrd who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck. I think of the threats of millennium violence that frightened black American families so much that they bought guns and stayed home for the New Year. I think of the tiny city in Texas who voted Sp

People who already like Baldwin will not have to be sold on a volume that contains all his essays. This is an incredible resource to have. My only quibble is that the book is not indexed. With a Nobel laureate as an editor, one would expect such a rudimentary tool. Those who have heard about Baldwin's powerful prose but who are afraid that they will be bored should cast aside those doubts. This collection is easily readable from cover to cover. Essays on equality for black Americans are not simply of historical interest as Baldwin displays in such essays his basically humanistic philosophy which can apply universally. Get your notebook out to take down all his fabulous quotes. Okay, now buy the book!

A beautiful, powerful and passionate book that deserves a place in the library, to be returned to time and again. Baldwin is a polemicist of rare quality, inspiring with the quality of his argument and prose. The Library of America has packaged this work, like its others, in a fine quality, sturdy edition (notice how many times I mentioned quality?).