James Baldwin: A Biography Paperback – February 24, 2015
by David Leeming (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars 122 ratings
#1 Best Seller in 20th Century Literary Criticism
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“The most revealing and subjectively penetrating assessment of Baldwin’s life yet published.” —The New York Times Book Review. “The first Baldwin biography in which one can recognize the human features of this brilliant, troubled, principled, supremely courageous man.” —Boston Globe
James Baldwin was one of the great writers of the last century. In works that have become part of the American canon—Go Tell It on a Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, and The Evidence of Things Not Seen—he explored issues of race and racism in America, class distinction, and sexual difference.
A gay, African American writer who was born in Harlem, he found the freedom to express himself living in exile in Paris. When he returned to America to cover the Civil Rights movement, he became an activist and controversial spokesman for the movement, writing books that became bestsellers and made him a celebrity, landing him on the cover of Time.
In this biography, David Leeming creates an intimate portrait of a complex, troubled, driven, and brilliant man. He plumbs every aspect of Baldwin’s life: his relationships with the unknown and the famous, including painter Beauford Delaney, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, and childhood friend Richard Avedon; his expatriate years in France and Turkey; his gift for compassion and love; the public pressures that overwhelmed his quest for happiness, and his passionate battle for black identity, racial justice, and to “end the racial nightmare and achieve our country.”
James Baldwin was one of the great writers of the last century. In works that have become part of the American canon—Go Tell It on a Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, and The Evidence of Things Not Seen—he explored issues of race and racism in America, class distinction, and sexual difference.
A gay, African American writer who was born in Harlem, he found the freedom to express himself living in exile in Paris. When he returned to America to cover the Civil Rights movement, he became an activist and controversial spokesman for the movement, writing books that became bestsellers and made him a celebrity, landing him on the cover of Time.
In this biography, David Leeming creates an intimate portrait of a complex, troubled, driven, and brilliant man. He plumbs every aspect of Baldwin’s life: his relationships with the unknown and the famous, including painter Beauford Delaney, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, and childhood friend Richard Avedon; his expatriate years in France and Turkey; his gift for compassion and love; the public pressures that overwhelmed his quest for happiness, and his passionate battle for black identity, racial justice, and to “end the racial nightmare and achieve our country.”
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The best literary biography I’ve read in a long time. An engrossing narrative.” —Leon Edel
“The most revealing and subjectively penetrating assessment of Baldwin’s life yet published.” —The New York Times Book Review
“The first Baldwin biography in which one can recognize the human features of this brilliant, troubled, principled, supremely courageous man.” —Boston Globe
“Loving but honest . . . [Baldwin] wrote, ‘No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it,’ and . . . Mr. Leeming shows so well [the price he paid].” —The New York Times
“Intimate, artful—and major . . . An exceptional literary biography deserving wide promotion and readership . . . [by] a personal friend of the great novelist and essayist.” —Booklist
“Highly perceptive, revealing.” —Publishers Weekly
About the Author
David Leeming, emeritus professor of English at the University of Connecticut, was a friend of James Baldwin for twenty-five years as well as his assistant from 1963 to 1967. He is also the author of several works on world mythology, including The World of Myth: An Anthology and Medusa: In the Mirror of Time. He lives in Rhinebeck, New York.
Product details
Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Arcade Publishing; Reprint edition (February 24, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1628724382
ISBN-13: 978-1628724387
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 4.8 out of 5 stars122 customer ratings
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#3 in Artist & Architect Biographies
#1 in 20th Century Literary Criticism (Books)
#24 in Author Biographies
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james baldwin civil rights david leeming must read baldwin life biography american bio america harlem knew close negro early activist americans became complex father jimmy
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Paul Frandano
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Account of Tormented Genius
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2018
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I'm old enough to remember the Freedom Riders, and the sit-ins, and Bull Connor, and Martin and Malcolm and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and so much more, all in black and white on a 19 inch Zenith. I've received unsubtle guidance and reading material from African-American comrades in arms during our Vietnam era military service. I've studied the history of the movement with a militant professor. I thought I had a reasonable, historically informed view of racism in America.
Then I read Jimmy Baldwin, and this marvelous biography, and my world shifted.
Baldwin saw himself as prophetic, and history bears his prophecies out. In one important essay after another, and then in his novels, Baldwin's analysis early in the 1960s of "the Negro problem" - as a "White problem" and as a perpetuation of racist mythologies that denigrate African Americans and elevate any and all whites (long before any talk of "white privilege" and its analysis, loosely analogous to that of Baldwin) - remains as cogent today as the day it was written.
Biographer David Leeming was in an ideal position to render Baldwin the justice he fully deserves. Leeming does indefatigable service to his friend and sometime employer, combing the archives, reading every draft, all the unpublished manuscripts, letters, notes, outlines, tracking down and interviewing Baldwin intimates, casual acquaintances, editors, colleagues, drinking companions, lovers, and on and on, hiding nothing (apart from the occasional Baldwin paramour, in the interest of privacy) and placing Baldwin's life in superb context, showing, in detail after detail, how Baldwin, the consummate auto-novelist, placed his life and beliefs completely, exhaustively, redundantly, in myriad variations, on the page, and then walked the talk.
Essential as both a tale of a turbulent time in our national life - with the awakening of the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and into the 1960s, a time of courageous protest, daring activism, horrific suppression, riots, assassinations, and waxing and waning political courage - and as a literary biography of a wholly self-made genius, who knew and befriended all the principal civil rights activists and who was himself the center of a literal movable literary feast - the list of Baldwin's prominent friends and admirers is a Who's Who of the times - from his early days in a Harlem ghetto, through three years as "boy preacher" who then left the church and his father's home on the same day, and on to international fame and literary acclaim as perhaps the most formidable bad conscience of his time.
Leeming's work also passes muster as a commentary on Baldwin's novels, albeit from a very favorably biased point of view and at sometimes too great a length, with spoilers abounding. Still, Leeming gives Baldwin's critics their say, even as he guides his readers back to the Baldwin oeuvre. Leeming provides the extensive, deeply knowledgeable baseline from which all Baldwin biographers must begin. More importantly for me, Leeming's biography makes a strong case for the significance of Baldwin's late novels, which have generally had more deteractors than admirers among the literary chattering classes, and has fortified me with a determination to read Baldwin's entire published catalogue, or at very least the three Library of America volumes (of which I've made progress in two).
David Leeming has given us a profoundly sympathetic portrait of a complex, tormented man and how that man transformed his pain into art. It is an unusually candid, absolutely essential work on the life and work of a remarkable - and remarkably prophetic - human being.
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35 people found this helpful
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Lawrence
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2019
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I'm a long-time admirer and student of Baldwin's writing, and this bio fleshes out the person behind the talent. Baldwin was one of my generation's most important voices. It's incredible that he never received a Nobel for literature, or even a Pulitzer, but probably ruffled too many feathers in his time.
10 people found this helpful
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kitty kat
1.0 out of 5 stars Another book where the print is so tiny and smashed together...
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2020
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This is the second book I have received where the print is so small and dense that I doubt that I can read it. I'm so angry and disappointed by this. How can we find out what the print is like BEFORE we waste our money? If you "open" the book, on line, the type is normal. It's not normal when you get the book.
4 people found this helpful
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Gerard H.
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it.
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2015
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The early half of the 20th century probably produced some of the best artists we've ever seen. But what seems to be the case among the many artists of that time, is the struggle to find balance between creativity, love, family, social conditions and current events and life itself. A man gifted in many ways, but in constant turmoil struggling to find peace and happiness in a life filled with anything but the two. Like most of his time, his life was a roller coaster ride and will take you from the streets of Harlem to his travels around the world. If you want to know about the life of the one of the best writers of the 20th century, this is the place to start.
16 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Bio
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2019
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An incredibly living portrayal of my favorite essayist. They this, Baldwin lives again, in all of his glory. God bless, baby.
3 people found this helpful
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Mark Statman
3.0 out of 5 stars has great affection for this great writer
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2016
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This is an okay bio. Disorganized in the telling though Leeming, who was close to Baldwin, has great affection for this great writer. So a mix of bio and appreciation. Minor but worth reading.
12 people found this helpful
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1PITLVR2!
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2020
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Great Bio!
2 people found this helpful
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lottiepooh
5.0 out of 5 stars James Baldwin 's Auto
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2020
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After 50 yr Plus James Baldwin is Stillllllllllllllllllllll A Great Reading of the times that He lived in...unfortunately not a lot as changed for the Negro/ African American
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