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James Baldwin Centenary

Celebrate 100 years of James Baldwin, the literary legend and civil rights champion.

James Baldwin, an iconic writer and activist, explored the complexities of race, identity, love, and class with searing insight. Join us as we celebrate 100 years of Baldwin--one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Baldwin’s legacy as a writer and civil rights activist has left an indelible mark on history, and his wisdom and courage continue to inspire generations. 

Artwork by Ernesto Yerena based on the original photo by Allan Warren. Logo includes "James Baldwin on the Galata Bridge," Istanbul, Turkey 1964 © Sedat Pakay | www.sedatpakay.com, used with permission.

Happy Birthday James Baldwin

Join us as we celebrate the iconic legacy of James Baldwin and his lasting impact on our world today.

Featured contributors: Nicola Yoon, author of "Everything, Everything;" "The Sun is Also a Star;" and "One of Our Kind” Karen Thorsen, Director of "James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket" Meshell Ndegeocello, Singer-Songwriter ("No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin") Randy Ribay’s, author of "Everything We Never Had" Jose Antonio Vargas, "Journalist, Filmmaker, and Immigration Rights Activist" Anna Malaika Tubbs, author of "The Three Mothers"

*James Baldwin Audio and video clips courtesy of the film, "James Baldwin: Price of the Ticket. Learn more at: https://jamesbaldwinproject.org/ Photo: Alfred A. Knopf Literary File Photography Collection, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Listen to The Baldwin 100 Podcast

Brought to you by Penguin Random House and the James Baldwin Family, this show examines the life and work of iconic author and Civil Rights activist James Baldwin, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Join host Cree Myles of the award-winning All Ways Black as she goes behind the scenes with Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Roxane Gay, Billy Dee Williams, Robert Jones Jr., and other luminaries to give the inside scoop on who James Baldwin was and why he and his works are more relevant than ever today.

Listen with Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you stream podcasts.

Available Now

James Baldwin Box Set by James Baldwin

James Baldwin Box Set

James Baldwin

A box set of James Baldwin's principal novels, featuring Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni's Room, and If Beale Street Could Talk.

Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first major work, based in part on his own childhood. With lyrical precision and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem.

Giovanni's Room is set in the Paris of the 1950s, where a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. One of the first novels to openly explore the theme of homosexuality, it paved the way for generations of gay and lesbian novelists.

And If Beale Street Could Talk is a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime--a profoundly moving novel about love in the face of injustice that is as socially resonant today as it was when it was first published.

This stunningly designed slipcase with art by Baldwin's friend and contemporary Beauford Delaney will make the perfect perennial gift and keepsake.

Individual Deluxe Editions

Giovanni's Room (Deluxe Edition) by James Baldwin

Giovanni's Room (Deluxe Edition)

James Baldwin

Go Tell It on the Mountain (Deluxe Edition) by James Baldwin, Roxane Gay

Go Tell It on the Mountain (Deluxe Edition)

James Baldwin, Roxane Gay

If Beale Street Could Talk (Deluxe Edition) by James Baldwin, Brit Bennett

If Beale Street Could Talk (Deluxe Edition)

James Baldwin, Brit Bennett

Available Now

The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name; No Name in the Street; The Devil Finds Work by James Baldwin, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name; No Name in the Street; The Devil Finds Work

James Baldwin, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

A major hardcover compendium of nonfiction by one of America's most brilliant essayists, timed to the celebration of his centenary

Novelist, essayist, and public intellectual James Baldwin is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. This Everyman's Library collection includes his bestselling, galvanizing essay The Fire Next Time—which gave voice to the emerging civil rights movement of the 1960s and still lights the way to understanding race in America today—along with three additional brilliant works of nonfiction by this seminal chronicler and analyst of culture. From No Name In the Street's extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies to the "passionate, probing, controversial" (The Atlantic) Nobody Knows My Name and the incisive criticism of American movies in The Devil Finds Work, Baldwin's stunning prose over and over proves relevant to our contemporary struggle for equality, justice, and social change.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

About the Author

James Baldwin
Photo: © The Granger Collection

James Baldwin

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure in the growing civil rights movement. Baldwin spent much of his life in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in France in 1987, a year after being made a Commander of the French Legion of Honor.

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