Notes of a Native Son

Originally published in 1955, James Baldwin's first nonfiction book has become a classic. These searing essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and Americans abroad remain as powerful today as when they were written.

Langston Hughes

A straight-from-the-shoulder writerwriting about the troubled problems of this troubled earthwith an illuminating intensity that should influence for the better all who ponder on the things books say....Few American writers handle words more effectively in the essay form than James Baldwin. —The New York Times Book Review

In 1953, a young James Baldwin published Go Tell It on the Mountain, winning acclaim as a literary star and one of the leading voices of the African-American experience. Although Baldwin would spend the bulk of his adult life in France, his writing always addressed the complexities at the heart of America, viewed through the lens of the consummate outsider.