Synopsis
The Cross of Redemption is a revelation by an American literary master: a gathering of essays, articles, polemics, reviews, and interviews that have never before appeared in book form.
James Baldwin was one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the past century, renowned for his fierce engagement with issues haunting our common history. In The Cross of Redemption we have Baldwin discoursing on, among other subjects, the possibility of an African-American president and what it might mean; the hypocrisy of American religious fundamentalism; the black church in America; the trials and tribulations of black nationalism; anti-Semitism; the blues and boxing; Russian literary masters; and the role of the writer in our society.
Prophetic and bracing, The Cross of Redemption is a welcome and important addition to the works of a cosmopolitan and canonical American writer who still has much to teach us about race, democracy, and personal and national identity. As Michael Ondaatje has remarked, “If van Gogh was our nineteenth-century artist-saint, Baldwin [was] our twentieth-century one.”
The Barnes & Noble Review
The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings brings forward fifty-five essays that few people outside of Baldwin scholars have read; it is, therefore, something we can be eagerly thankful for, and great credit is due the editor Randall Kenan (a successful novelist in his own right). Described as a "companion volume" to the Library of America edition of Baldwin's Collected Essays, Kenan's selections are in fact more than just complementary. What we have here are not b-sides to the top 40 hits of Baldwin's career, but rather the author's rehearsals of his more famous essays. And rehearsals can be just as entertaining and informing -- if not moreso -- than full dress performances.