Critical Insights: James Baldwin

A series of introductory essays acquaints (or reacquaints) readers with the key themes and contexts of Baldwin’s work, the culture and politics of his time, and the 1948 flight to Paris that influenced two of his most famous essays. Classic and contemporary pieces discuss Baldwin’s essays and their cultural and political context. Other essays discuss Baldwin’s novel Go Tell It on the Mountain and its themes of regret, recollection and confession, and the themes of nostalgia and sexual desire in Giovanni’s Room and “Going to Meet the Man.”