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  • Published: 29 January 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241334003
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $22.99

Notes of a Native Son




A breakthrough work of social and cultural criticism from one of the foremost intellectuals of his era

Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement. Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin probes the complex condition of being black in America - from life in Harlem, to the protest novel, movies, and the experience of African Americans abroad - and many of his observations have proven almost prophetic.

This book inaugurated Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes erupting in the United States in the twentieth century and it is the book that established Baldwin's voice as a social critic. In an age of Black Lives Matter, Baldwin's essays are as powerful today as when they were first written.

  • Published: 29 January 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241334003
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

James Baldwin

Born in 1924 in New York City, James Baldwin published the 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, going on to garner acclaim for his insights on race, spirituality and humanity.
Other novels included Giovanni's Room, Another Country and Just Above My Head as well as essay works like Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time. Having lived in France, he died on December 1, 1987 in Saint-Paul de Vence.

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Praise for Notes of a Native Son

A straight-from-the-shoulder writer, writing about the troubled problems of this troubled earth with an illuminating intensity that should influence for the better all who ponder on the things books say

Langston Hughes, The New York Times

A classic . . . Take the words out of the 1950s, when they were published, and they could apply to the women in pink hats, the scientists, the Black Lives Matter activists, the climate-change believers and the LGBTQ-rights supporters who have flooded the streets of Washington this year

Washington Post

Edgy and provocative . . . entertainingly satirical

Robert McCrum, Guardian

A classic ... In a divided America, James Baldwin's fiery critiques reverberate anew

Washington Post

Cemented his reputation as a cultural seer ... Notes of a Native Son endures as his defining work, and his greatest

Time

Powerful . . . I wish I could press this book into the hands of every American - actually, every human.

Celeste Ng, Guardian