Editing James Baldwin (section)

==Career==
===Life in Paris (1948–1957)===
{{See also|James Baldwin in France}}
Disillusioned by the reigning prejudice against [[Black people]] in the United States, and wanting to gain external perspectives on himself and his writing, Baldwin settled in Paris, France, at the age of 24. Baldwin did not want to be read as "merely a [[Negro]]; or, even, merely a Negro writer."<ref>Baldwin, James. 1985. "The Discovery of What it Means to be an American." Ch. 18 in ''[[The Price of the Ticket|The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948–1985]].'' New York: [[St. Martin's Press]]. p. 171.</ref> He also hoped to come to terms with his sexual ambivalence and escape from the hopelessness to which many young African-American men like himself succumbed.<ref>Baldwin, James, "Fifth Avenue, Uptown" in ''The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948–1985'' (New York: St. Martin's/Marek, 1985), 206.</ref>

In 1948, Baldwin received a $1,500 grant ({{inflation|US|1500|1948|fmt=eq}}){{Inflation/fn|US}} from a [[Rosenwald Fellowship]]{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=47}} in order to produce a book of photographs and essays that was to be both a catalog of churches and an exploration of religiosity in Harlem. Baldwin worked with a photographer friend named Theodore Pelatowski, whom Baldwin met through [[Richard Avedon]].{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=63–64}} Although the book (titled ''Unto the Dying Lamb'') was never finished,{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=63–64}} the Rosenwald funding did allow Baldwin to realise his long-standing ambition of moving to France.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=64}} After saying his goodbyes to his mother and his younger siblings, with forty dollars to his name, Baldwin flew from New York to Paris on November 11, 1948.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=64}} He gave most of the scholarship funds to his mother.{{sfn|Kenan 1994|p=57}} Baldwin would later give various explanations for leaving America—sex, [[Calvinism]], an intense sense of hostility which he feared would turn inward—but, above all, was the problem of race, which, throughout his life, had exposed him to a lengthy catalog of humiliations.<ref>{{harvnb|Campbell|2021|p=51}}; {{harvnb|Leeming|1994|p=89}}</ref> He hoped for a more peaceable existence in Paris.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=54}}

In Paris, Baldwin was soon involved in the cultural radicalism of the [[Rive Gauche|Left Bank]]. He started to publish his work in literary anthologies, notably ''Zero''<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9wdVDKAZZFoC&q=New+York+Times+'Zero'+Themistocles+Hoetis&pg=PP5|title=Zero: A Review of Literature and Art |publisher=Arno Press |year=1974 |isbn=978-0-405-01753-7|location=New York |issue=1–7}}</ref> which was edited by his friend [[Themistocles Hoetis]] and which had already published essays by [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]].

Baldwin spent nine years living in Paris, mostly in [[Saint-Germain-des-Prés]], with various excursions to [[Switzerland]], [[Spain]], and back to the United States.<ref>{{harvnb|Leeming|1994|pp=86–89}}; {{harvnb|Campbell|2021|p=52}}</ref> Baldwin's time in Paris was itinerant: he stayed with various friends around the city and in various hotels. Most notable of these lodgings was Hôtel Verneuil, a hotel in Saint-Germain that had collected a motley crew of struggling expatriates, mostly writers.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=66}} This Verneuil circle spawned numerous friendships that Baldwin relied upon in rough periods.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=66}} He was also extremely poor during his time in Paris, with only momentary respites from that condition.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=51}} In his early years in Saint-Germain, he met [[Otto Friedrich]], [[Mason Hoffenberg]], [[Asa Benveniste]], [[Themistocles Hoetis]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Max Ernst]], [[Truman Capote]], and [[Stephen Spender]], among many others.<ref>{{harvnb|Campbell|2021|p=54}}; {{harvnb|Leeming|1994|pp=66–67, 75–76}}</ref> Baldwin also met Lucien Happersberger, a Swiss boy, 17 years old at the time of their first meeting, who came to France in search of excitement.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=82}} Happersberger and Baldwin began to bond for the next few years, eventually becoming his intimate partner and he became Baldwin's near-obsession for some time afterward. Baldwin and Happersberger remained friends for the next thirty-nine years.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=82–83}}{{efn|Happersberger gave form to Giovanni in Baldwin's 1956 novel ''[[Giovanni's Room]]''.}} Even though his time in Paris was not easy, Baldwin escaped from the aspects of American life that outraged him the most—especially the "daily indignities of [[Racism in the United States|racism]]."{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=54}} According to one biographer: "Baldwin seemed at ease in his Paris life; Jimmy Baldwin the [[aesthetics|aesthete]] and lover reveled in the Saint-Germain ambiance."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=70}}

During his early years in Paris, prior to the publication of ''[[Go Tell It on the Mountain (novel)|Go Tell It on the Mountain]]'' in 1953, Baldwin wrote several notable works. "The Negro in Paris", first published in ''The Reporter'', explored Baldwin's perception of an incompatibility between Black Americans and Black Africans in Paris, because Black Americans had faced a "depthless alienation from oneself and one's people" that was mostly unknown to Parisian Africans.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=72}} He also wrote "The Preservation of Innocence", which traced the violence against homosexuals in American life back to the protracted adolescence of America as a society.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=74}} In the magazine ''Commentary'', he published "Too Little, Too Late", an essay about Black American literature, and he also published "The Death of the Prophet", a short story that grew out of Baldwin's earlier writings of ''Go Tell It on The Mountain''. In the latter work, Baldwin employs a character named Johnnie to trace his bouts of depression back to his inability to resolve the questions of filial intimacy raised by his relationship with his stepfather.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=76–77}} In December 1949, Baldwin was arrested and jailed for receiving stolen goods after an American friend brought him bedsheets that the friend had taken from another Paris hotel.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=77–80}} When the charges were dismissed several days later, to the laughter of the courtroom, Baldwin wrote of the experience in his essay "Equal in Paris", also published in ''Commentary'' in 1950.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=77–80}} In the essay, he expressed his surprise and his bewilderment at how he was no longer a "despised black man", instead, he was simply an American, no different from the white American friend who stole the sheet and was arrested with him.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=77–80}}

During his Paris years, Baldwin also published two of his three scathing critiques of [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]]—"Everybody's Protest Novel" in 1949 and "Many Thousands Gone" in 1951. Baldwin criticizes Wright's work for being [[social novel|protest literature]], which Baldwin despised because it is "concerned with theories and with the categorization of human beings, and however brilliant the theories or accurate the categorizations, they fail because they deny life."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=72}} Protest writing cages humanity, but, according to Baldwin, "only within this web of ambiguity, paradox, this hunger, danger, darkness, can we find at once ourselves and the power that will free us from ourselves."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=72}} Baldwin took Wright's ''Native Son'' and Stowe's ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', both erstwhile favorites of Baldwin's, as [[paradigmatic analysis]] examples of the protest novel's problem.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=72}} The treatment of Wright's character [[Bigger Thomas]] by socially earnest white people near the end of ''Native Son'' was, for Baldwin, emblematic of white Americans' presumption that for Black people "to become truly human and acceptable, [they] must first become like us. This assumption once accepted, the Negro in America can only acquiesce in the obliteration of his own personality."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=73}} In these two essays, Baldwin came to articulate what would become a theme of his work: that [[Racism against African Americans|white racism toward Black Americans]] was refracted through self-hatred and self-denial—"One may say that the Negro in America does not really exist except in the darkness of [white] minds. [...] Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=73}}{{efn|Baldwin reflected on "Everybody's Protest Novel" in a 1984 interview for ''[[The Paris Review]]'', saying that the essay was a "discharge" of the "be kind to [[nigger]]s, be kind to [[Jews]]"-type of book he constantly reviewed in his Paris era: "I was convinced then—and I still am—that those sort of books do nothing but bolster up an image. ... [I]t seemed to me that if I took the role of a victim then I was simply reassuring the defenders of the status quo; as long as I was a victim they could pity me and add a few more pennies to my home relief check."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=73}}}} Baldwin's relationship with Wright was tense but cordial after the essays, although Baldwin eventually ceased to regard Wright as a mentor.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|pp=65–70}} Meanwhile, "Everybody's Protest Novel" had earned Baldwin the label "the most promising young Negro writer since Richard Wright."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=80}}

Beginning in the winter of 1951, Baldwin and Happersberger took several trips to [[Leukerbad|Loèches-les-Bains]] in Switzerland, where Happersberger's family owned a small chateau.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=85}} By the time of the first trip, Happersberger had then entered a heterosexual relationship but grew worried for his friend Baldwin and offered to take Baldwin to the Swiss village.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=85}} Baldwin's time in the village gave form to his essay "[[Stranger in the Village]]", published in ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'' in October 1953.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=86}} In that essay, Baldwin described some unintentional mistreatment and offputting experiences at the hands of Swiss villagers who possessed a racial innocence which few Americans could attest to.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=85}} Baldwin explored how the bitter history which was shared by Black and white Americans had formed an indissoluble web of relations that changed the members of both races: "No road whatever will lead Americans back to the simplicity of this European village where white men still have the luxury of looking on me as a stranger."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=86}}

[[File:jamesbaldwin.jpg|thumb|Baldwin photographed by [[Carl Van Vechten]], 1955]]
Beauford Delaney's arrival in France in 1953 marked "the most important personal event in Baldwin's life" that year.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=100}} Around the same time, Baldwin's circle of friends shifted away from primarily white bohemians toward a coterie of Black American expatriates: Baldwin grew close to dancer Bernard Hassell; spent significant amounts of time at [[Gordon Heath]]'s club in Paris; regularly listened to [[Bobby Short]] and Inez Cavanaugh's performances at their respective haunts around the city; met [[Maya Angelou]] during her European tour of ''[[Porgy and Bess]]''; and occasionally met with writers Richard Gibson and [[Chester Himes]], composer [[Howard Swanson]], and even Richard Wright.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=99–100}} In 1954, Baldwin accepted a fellowship at the [[MacDowell (artists' residency and workshop)|MacDowell writer's colony]] in New Hampshire to support the writing of a new novel and he also won a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]].{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=101-103}} Also in 1954, Baldwin published the three-act play ''[[The Amen Corner]]'' which features the preacher Sister Margaret—a fictionalized Mother Horn from Baldwin's time at Fireside Pentecostal—who struggles with a difficult inheritance and with alienation from herself and her loved ones on account of her religious fervor.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=113}} Baldwin spent several weeks in [[Washington, D.C.]], and particularly around [[Howard University]] while he collaborated with [[Owen Dodson]] for the premiere of ''The Amen Corner.'' Baldwin returned to Paris in October 1955.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=112–120}}

Baldwin decided that he would return to the United States in 1957, so in early 1956, he decided to enjoy what was to be his last year in France.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=124}} He became friends with [[Norman Mailer|Norman]] and Adele Mailer, was recognized by the [[National Institute of Arts and Letters]] with a grant, and he was set to publish ''[[Giovanni's Room]]''.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=124–125}} Nevertheless, Baldwin sank deeper into an emotional wreckage. In the summer of 1956—after a seemingly failed affair with a Black musician named Arnold, Baldwin's first serious relationship since Happersberger—Baldwin overdosed on sleeping pills during a [[suicide attempt]].{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=125}} He regretted the attempt almost instantly and he called a friend who had him regurgitate the pills before the doctor arrived.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=125}} Baldwin went on to attend the [[Congress of Black Writers and Artists]] in September 1956, a conference which he found disappointing in its perverse reliance on European themes while nonetheless purporting to extol African originality.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=126}}

==== Literary career ====
Baldwin's first published work, a review of the writer [[Maxim Gorky]], appeared in ''[[The Nation]]'' in 1947.<ref name="gorki">{{cite magazine |last=Baldwin |first=James |date=April 12, 1947 |title=Maxim Gorki as Artist |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/maxim-gorki-artist/ |magazine=The Nation |access-date=August 20, 2016}}</ref><ref name="thenation">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781560250012/page/261 |title=The Nation: 1865–1990 |date=1990 |publisher=[[Thunder's Mouth Press]] |isbn=978-1560250012 |editor-last=vanden Heuvel |editor-first=Katrina |editor-link=Katrina vanden Heuvel |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781560250012/page/261 261]}}</ref> He continued to publish there at various times in his career and was serving on its editorial board at the time of his death in 1987.<ref name="thenation" />[[File:Panneau Histoire de Paris, café de Flore, 172 boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris 6e.jpg|left|thumb|[[Café de Flore]], [[Boulevard Saint-Germain]], [[Paris]], May 2019. In the large upstairs heated room ({{small|''SALLE AU 1<sup>er</sup> – CLIMATISÉE''}}) in 1952 Baldwin worked on his first novel ''[[Go Tell It on the Mountain (novel)|Go Tell It on the Mountain]]'' (1953).]]

=== 1950s ===
In 1953, Baldwin published his first novel, ''[[Go Tell It on the Mountain (novel)|Go Tell It on the Mountain]]'', a semi-autobiographical ''[[bildungsroman]]''. He began writing it when he was 17 and first published it in Paris. His first collection of essays, ''[[Notes of a Native Son]]'' appeared two years later. He continued to experiment with literary forms throughout his career, publishing poetry and plays as well as the fiction and essays for which he was known.

Baldwin's second novel, ''[[Giovanni's Room]]'', caused great controversy when it was first published in 1956 due to its explicit homoerotic content.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Field |first1=Douglas |title=American Cold War Culture |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=2005 |editor1-last=Field |editor1-first=Douglas |location=Edinburgh |pages=88–106 |chapter=Passing as a Cold War novel: anxiety and assimilation in James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room}}</ref> Baldwin again resisted labels with the publication of this work.<ref name="Balfour">{{cite book |last1=Balfour |first1=Lawrie |url=https://archive.org/details/evidenceofthings00lawr |title=The Evidence of Things Not Said: James Baldwin and the Promise of American Democracy |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8014-8698-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/evidenceofthings00lawr/page/51 51] |url-access=registration}}</ref> Despite the reading public's expectations that he would publish works dealing with African-American experiences, ''Giovanni's Room'' is predominantly about white characters.<ref name="Balfour" />

==== ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'' (1953) ====
{{main|Go Tell It on the Mountain (novel)}}
Baldwin sent the manuscript for ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'' from Paris to New York publishing house [[Alfred A. Knopf]] on February 26, 1952, and Knopf expressed interest in the novel several months later.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=87}} To settle the terms of his association with Knopf, Baldwin sailed back to the United States in April 1952 on the [[SS Île de France|SS ''Île de France'']], where [[Themistocles Hoetis]] and [[Dizzy Gillespie]] were coincidentally also voyaging—his conversations with both on the ship were extensive.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=87}} After his arrival in New York, Baldwin spent much of the next three months with his family, whom he had not seen in almost three years.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=88}} Baldwin grew particularly close to his younger brother, David Jr., and served as best man at David's wedding on June 27.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=87}} Meanwhile, Baldwin agreed to rewrite parts of ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'' in exchange for a $250 advance (${{inflation|US|250|1952|fmt=c}} today) and a further $750 (${{inflation|US|750|1952|fmt=c}} today) paid when the final manuscript was completed.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=88}} When Knopf accepted the revision in July, they sent the remainder of the advance, and Baldwin was soon to have his first published novel.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=89}} In the interim, Baldwin published excerpts of the novel in two publications: one excerpt was published as "Exodus" in ''[[American Mercury]]'' and the other as "Roy's Wound" in ''[[New World Writing]]''.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=89}} Baldwin set sail back to Europe on August 28 and ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'' was published in May 1953.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=89}}

''Go Tell It on the Mountain'' was the product of years of work and exploratory writing since his first attempt at a novel in 1938.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=92}} In rejecting the ideological manacles of protest literature and the presupposition he thought inherent to such works that "in Negro life there exists no tradition, no field of manners, no possibility of ritual or intercourse", Baldwin sought in ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'' to emphasize that the core of the problem was "not that the Negro has no tradition but that there has as yet arrived no sensibility sufficiently profound and tough to make this tradition articulate."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=91}} Baldwin biographer [[David Leeming]] draws parallels between ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'' and [[James Joyce]]'s 1916 ''[[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]]'': to "encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=64, 92}} Baldwin himself drew parallels between Joyce's flight from his native [[Ireland]] and his own run from Harlem, and Baldwin read Joyce's tome in Paris in 1950, however, in Baldwin's ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'', it would be the Black American "uncreated conscience" at the heart of the project.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=91–92}}

The novel is a [[bildungsroman]] that explores the inward struggles of protagonist John Grimes, the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Grimes, to claim his own soul as it lies on the "[[Matthew 3:12|threshing floor]]"—a clear allusion to another John: [[John the Baptist|the Baptist]], born of another [[Elizabeth (biblical figure)|Elizabeth]].{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=92}} John's struggle is a metaphor for Baldwin's own struggle between escaping the history and heritage that made him, awful though it may be, and plunging deeper into that heritage, to the bottom of his people's sorrows, before he can shrug off his psychic chains, "climb the mountain", and free himself.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=92}} John's family members and most of the characters in the novel are blown north in the winds of the Great Migration in search of the [[American Dream]] and all are stifled.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=93}} Florence, Elizabeth, and Gabriel are denied love's reach because racism assured that they could not muster the kind of self-respect that love requires.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=93}} Racism drives Elizabeth's lover, Richard, to suicide—Richard will not be the last Baldwin character to die thus for that same reason.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=92}} Florence's lover Frank is destroyed by searing self-hatred of his own Blackness.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=92}} Gabriel's abuse of the women in his life is downstream from his society's emasculation of him, with mealy-mouthed religiosity only a hypocritical cover.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=92}}

The phrase "in my father's house" and various similar formulations appear throughout ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'' and was even an early title for the novel.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=91}} The house is a metaphor at several levels of generality: for his own family's apartment in Harlem, for Harlem taken as a whole, for America and its history, and for the "deep heart's core".{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=91}} John's departure from the agony that reigned in his father's house, particularly the historical sources of the family's privations, came through a [[Conversion narrative|conversion experience]].{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=93}} "Who are these? Who are they?" John cries out when he sees a mass of faces as he descends to the threshing floor: 'They were the despised and rejected, the wretched and the spat upon, the earth's offscouring; and he was in their company, and they would swallow up his soul."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=94}} John wants desperately to escape the threshing floor, but "[t]hen John saw the Lord" and "a sweetness" filled him.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=94}} The midwife of John's conversion is Elisha, the voice of love that had followed him throughout the experience, and whose body filled John with "a wild delight".{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=94}} Thus comes the wisdom that would define Baldwin's philosophy: per biographer David Leeming: "salvation from the chains and fetters—the self-hatred and the other effects—of historical racism could come only from love."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=94}}

==== ''Notes of a Native Son'' (1955) ====
{{main|Notes of a Native Son}}
Baldwin's friend from high school, Sol Stein, encouraged Baldwin to publish an essay collection reflecting on his work thus far.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=105}} Originally, Baldwin was reluctant, saying he was "too young to publish my memoirs."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=105}} but he nevertheless produced a collection, ''Notes of a Native Son,'' that was published in 1955.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=105}} The book contained practically all of the major themes that run through his work: searching for self when racial myths cloud reality; accepting an inheritance ("the conundrum of color is the inheritance of every American"); claiming a birthright ("my birthright was vast, connecting me to all that lives, and to everyone, forever"); the artist's loneliness; love's urgency.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=105–106}} All the essays in ''Notes'' were published between 1948 and 1955 in ''Commentary'', ''The New Leader'', ''Partisan Review'', ''The Reporter'', and ''Harper's Magazine''.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=106}} The essays rely on autobiographical detail to convey Baldwin's arguments, as all of Baldwin's work does.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=106}} ''Notes'' was Baldwin's first introduction to many white Americans and it became their reference point for his work: Baldwin was often asked: "Why don't you write more essays like the ones in ''Notes of a Native Son''?"{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=106}} The collection's title alludes to both Richard Wright's ''Native Son'' and the work of one of Baldwin's favorite writers, [[Henry James]]'s ''[[Notes of a Son and Brother]]''.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=107}}

''Notes of a Native Son'' is divided into three parts: the first part deals with Black identity as artist and human; the second part addresses Black life in America, including what is sometimes considered Baldwin's best essay, the titular "Notes of a Native Son"; the final part takes the expatriate's perspective, looking at American society from beyond its shores.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=108}} Part One of ''Notes'' features "Everybody's Protest Novel" and "Many Thousands Gone", along with "Carmen Jones: The Dark Is Light Enough", a 1955 review of ''[[Carmen Jones (film)|Carmen Jones]]'' written for ''Commentary'', in which Baldwin at once extols the sight of an all-Black cast on the [[silver screen]] and laments the film's myths about Black sexuality.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=107–108}} Part Two reprints "The Harlem Ghetto" and "Journey to Atlanta" as prefaces for "Notes of a Native Son". In "Notes of a Native Son", Baldwin attempts to come to terms with his racial and filial inheritances.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=109}} Part Three contains "Equal in Paris", "Stranger in the Village", "Encounter on the Seine", and "A Question of Identity". Writing from the expatriate's perspective, Part Three is the sector of Baldwin's corpus that most closely mirrors Henry James's methods: hewing out of one's distance and detachment from the homeland a coherent idea of what it means to be American.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=109}}{{efn|This is particularly true of "A Question of Identity". Indeed, Baldwin reread ''[[The Ambassadors]]'' around the same time he was writing "A Question of Identity" and the two works share some thematic congeniality.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=109}}}}

Throughout ''Notes'', when Baldwin is not speaking in [[first-person narrative|first-person]], Baldwin takes the view of white Americans. For example, in "The Harlem Ghetto", Baldwin writes: "what it means to be a Negro in America can perhaps be suggested by the myths we perpetuate about him."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=107}} This earned some quantity of scorn from reviewers: in a review for ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'', [[Langston Hughes]] lamented that "Baldwin's viewpoints are half American, half Afro-American, incompletely fused."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=107}} Others were nonplussed by the handholding of white audiences, which Baldwin himself would criticize in later works.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=107}} Nonetheless, most acutely in this stage in his career, Baldwin wanted to escape the rigid categories of protest literature and he viewed adopting a white point-of-view as a good method of doing so.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=107}}

==== ''Giovanni's Room'' (1956) ====
{{main|Giovanni's Room}}
Shortly after returning to Paris in 1956, Baldwin got word from [[Dial Press]] that ''Giovanni's Room'' had been accepted for publication.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=121}} The book was published that autumn.<ref>{{harvnb|Leeming|1994|p=124}}; {{harvnb|Campbell|2021|p=109}}</ref>

In the novel, the protagonist David is in Paris while his fiancée Hella is in Spain. David meets the titular Giovanni at a bar; the two grow increasingly intimate and David eventually finds his way to Giovanni's room. David is confused by his intense feelings for Giovanni and has sex with a woman in the spur of the moment to reaffirm his heterosexuality. Meanwhile, Giovanni begins to prostitute himself and finally commits a murder for which he is [[guillotine]]d.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|pp=108–109}} David's tale is one of love's inhibition: he cannot "face love when he finds it", writes biographer James Campbell.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=109}} The novel features a traditional theme: the clash between the constraints of puritanism and the impulse for adventure and the subsequent loss of innocence that results.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=109}}

The inspiration for the murder in the novel's plot is an event dating from 1943 to 1944. A [[Columbia University]] undergraduate named [[Lucien Carr]] murdered an older, homosexual man, David Kammerer, who made sexual advances on Carr.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=133}} The two were walking near the banks of the [[Hudson River]] when Kammerer made a pass at Carr, leading Carr to stab Kammerer and dump Kammerer's body in the river.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=108}} To Baldwin's relief, the reviews of ''Giovanni's Room'' were positive, and his family did not criticize the subject matter.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=134}}

===Return to New York===
Even from Paris, Baldwin was able to follow the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement in his homeland. In May 1954, the [[United States Supreme Court]] ordered schools to desegregate "with all deliberate speed"; in August 1955 the racist [[murder of Emmett Till]] in [[Money, Mississippi]], and the subsequent acquittal of his killers were etched in Baldwin's mind until he wrote ''[[Blues for Mister Charlie]]''; in December 1955, [[Rosa Parks]] was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]] bus; and in February 1956 [[Autherine Lucy]] was admitted to the [[University of Alabama]] before being expelled when whites rioted.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=121–122}} Meanwhile, Baldwin was increasingly burdened by the sense that he was wasting time in Paris.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=121}} Baldwin began planning a return to the United States in hopes of writing a biography of [[Booker T. Washington]], which he then called ''Talking at the Gates''. Baldwin also received commissions to write a review of [[Daniel Guérin]]'s ''Negroes on the March'' and [[J. C. Furnas]]'s ''Goodbye to Uncle Tom'' for ''The Nation'', as well as to write about [[William Faulkner]] and American racism for the ''Partisan Review''.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=123}}

The first project became "The Crusade of Indignation",{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=123}} published in July 1956.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Baldwin|first=James|date=July 7, 1956|title=The Crusade of Indignation|magazine=The Nation|language=en-US|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/crusade-indignation/|access-date=January 5, 2022|issn=0027-8378}}</ref> In it, Baldwin suggests that the portrait of Black life in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' "has set the tone for the attitude of American whites towards Negroes for the last one hundred years", and that, given the novel's popularity, this portrait has led to a unidimensional characterization of Black Americans that does not capture the full scope of Black humanity.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=123}} The second project turned into the essay "William Faulkner and Desegregation". The essay was inspired by Faulkner's March 1956 comment during an interview that he was sure to enlist himself with his fellow white Mississippians in a war over desegregation "even if it meant going out into the streets and shooting Negroes".{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=123}} For Baldwin, Faulkner represented the "go slow" mentality on desegregation that tries to wrestle with the Southerner's peculiar dilemma: the South "clings to two entirely antithetical doctrines, two legends, two histories"; the southerner is "the proud citizen of a free society and, on the other hand, committed to a society that has not yet dared to free itself of the necessity of naked and brutal oppression."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=123}} Faulkner asks for more time but "the time [...] does not exist. [...] There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=123}}

Baldwin initially intended to complete ''[[Another Country (novel)|Another Country]]'' before returning to New York in the fall of 1957, but progress on the novel was slow, so he decided to go back to the United States sooner.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=138}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 18, 2023 |title=The Many Lessons from James Baldwin's Another Country |url=https://lithub.com/the-many-lessons-from-james-baldwins-another-country/ |access-date=November 13, 2023 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}}</ref> Beauford Delaney was particularly upset by Baldwin's departure. Delaney had started to drink heavily and entered the [[Beauford Delaney#Mental deterioration|incipient stages of mental deterioration]], including complaining about hearing voices.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=138}}{{efn|Also around this time, Delaney had become obsessed with a portrait he had painted of Baldwin that disappeared. In fact, Baldwin had managed to leave the portrait in Owen Dodson's home when working with Dodson on the Washington, D.C., premiere of ''Another Country''. Biographer David Leeming described the missing painting as a "''clause célèbre''" among friends of Dodson, Delaney, and Baldwin. When Baldwin and Dodson had a falling-out some years later, hopes of retrieving the painting were dashed. The painting eventually reappeared in Dodson's effects after his death.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=138}}}} Nonetheless, after a brief visit with [[Édith Piaf]], Baldwin set sail for New York in July 1957.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=138}}[[Image:James Baldwin Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|right|Baldwin photographed by [[Allan Warren]]]]

=== 1960s ===
Baldwin's third and fourth novels, ''[[Another Country (novel)|Another Country]]'' (1962) and ''[[Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone]]'' (1968), are sprawling, [[Experimental literature|experimental works]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Miller |first=D. Quentin |url=https://archive.org/details/americanwritersc03unge |title=American Writers Retrospective Supplement II |date=2003 |publisher=Scribner's |isbn=978-0684312491 |editor=Parini, Jay |pages=[https://archive.org/details/americanwritersc03unge/page/1 1–17] |chapter=James Baldwin |url-access=registration}}</ref> dealing with Black and white characters, as well as with [[heterosexual]], [[gay]], and [[bisexual]] characters.<ref>{{cite news |last=Goodman |first=Paul |date=June 24, 1962 |title=Not Enough of a World to Grow In (review of ''Another Country'') |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-country.html}}</ref> Baldwin completed ''Another Country'' during his first, two-month stay in Istanbul (which ends with the note, Istanbul, Dec. 10, 1961). This was to be the first of many stays in Istanbul during the 1960s.<ref name=":2">{{Cite magazine |last=Pierpont |first=Claudia Roth |date=2009-02-01 |title=Another Country |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/02/09/another-country |access-date=2024-07-17 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>

In 1962, when Baldwin had already spent fourteen years as an expatriate living in France, he published his essay ''Letter from a Region in My Mind'' in The New Yorker. "Letter transitions deftly between episodic anecdotes, assessments of Baldwin’s own life-phases, and systemic analyses of the social-cultural factors behind racism."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://amitabasu.com/2020/12/13/baldwin-letter-region-mind-1962/ | title=Letter from a Region in My Mind (1962) | date=December 13, 2020 }}</ref>

Baldwin's lengthy essay "Down at the Cross" (frequently called ''[[The Fire Next Time]]'' after the title of the 1963 book in which it was published)<ref>{{cite news |last=Binn |first=Sheldon |date=January 31, 1963 |title=Review of ''The Fire Next Time'' |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-fire.html}}</ref> similarly showed the seething discontent of the 1960s in novel form. The essay was originally published in two oversized issues of ''The New Yorker'' and landed Baldwin on the cover of [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]] in 1963 while he was touring the South speaking about the restive [[Civil Rights Movement]]. Around the time of publication of ''The Fire Next Time'', Baldwin became a known spokesperson for civil rights and a celebrity noted for championing the cause of Black Americans. He frequently appeared on television and delivered speeches on college campuses.<ref name="Palmer, Colin A. 2005">Palmer, Colin A. "Baldwin, James", ''Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History'', 2nd edn, 2005. Print.</ref> The essay talked about the uneasy relationship between Christianity and the burgeoning [[Nation of Islam|Black Muslim]] movement. After publication, several [[Black nationalists]] criticized Baldwin for his conciliatory attitude. They questioned whether his message of love and understanding would do much to change race relations in America.<ref name="Palmer, Colin A. 2005" /> The book was consumed by whites looking for answers to the question: What do Black Americans really want? Baldwin's essays never stopped articulating the anger and frustration felt by real-life Black Americans with more clarity and style than any other writer of his generation.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Page |first1=Clarence |author-link=Clarence Page|date=December 16, 1987 |title=James Baldwin: Bearing Witness To The Truth |work=Chicago News Tribune |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1987/12/16/james-baldwin-bearing-witness-to-the-truth/}}</ref>

In 1965, Baldwin participated in [[Baldwin–Buckley debate|a much publicized debate]] with [[William F. Buckley]], on the topic of whether the [[American dream]] had been achieved at the expense of African Americans. The debate took place in the UK at the [[Cambridge Union]], historic debating society of the [[University of Cambridge]]. The spectating student body voted overwhelmingly in Baldwin's favor.<ref>{{Cite news|last1=Baldwin|first1=James|url=https://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/papercuts/baldwin-and-buckley.pdf|title=The American Dream|date=March 7, 1965|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=April 6, 2020|last2=Buckley|first2=William F.|pages=32+}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{YouTube|oFeoS41xe7w|James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)}}</ref>

=== 1970s and 1980s ===
Baldwin's next book-length essay, ''[[No Name in the Street]]'' (1972), also discussed his own experience in the context of the later 1960s, specifically the assassinations of three of his personal friends: [[Assassination of Medgar Evers|Medgar Evers]], [[Assassination of Malcolm X|Malcolm X]], and [[Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr|Martin Luther King Jr]].

Baldwin's writings of the 1970s and 1980s were largely overlooked by critics, although they have received increasing attention in recent years.<ref name="Altman2011">{{cite news |last=Altman |first=Elias |date=May 2, 2011 |title=Watered Whiskey: James Baldwin's Uncollected Writings |work=The Nation |url=http://www.thenation.com/article/159925/watered-whiskey-james-baldwins-uncollected-writings}}</ref> Several of his essays and interviews of the 1980s discuss [[homosexuality]] and [[homophobia]] with fervor and forthrightness.<ref name="Palmer, Colin A. 2005" /> [[Eldridge Cleaver]]'s harsh criticism of Baldwin in ''[[Soul on Ice (book)|Soul on Ice]]'' and elsewhere<ref>[[Cleaver, Eldridge]], "Notes On a Native Son", ''[[Ramparts (magazine)|Ramparts]]'', June 1966, pp. 51–57.</ref> and Baldwin's return to southern France contributed to the perception by critics that he was not in touch with his readership.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Vogel |first1=Joseph |title=James Baldwin and the 1980s: Witnessing the Reagan Era |date=2018 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=0252041747<!-- |access-date=22 November 2021--> |location=Urbana}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=James Baldwin in Context |date=2019 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781108636025 |editor-last1=Miller |editor-first1=Quentin D. |location=Cambridge |pages=76–89 <!-- |access-date=22 November 2021-->}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=A Historical Guide to James Baldwin |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195366549 |editor-last1=Field |editor-first1=Douglas |location=Oxford |page=21 <!--|access-date=22 November 2021-->}}</ref> As he had been the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, he became an inspirational figure for the emerging gay rights movement.<ref name="Palmer, Colin A. 2005" /> His two novels written in the 1970s, ''[[If Beale Street Could Talk]]'' (1974) and ''[[Just Above My Head]]'' (1979), stressed the importance of [[Black American]] families. He concluded his career by publishing a volume of poetry, ''Jimmy's Blues'' (1983), as well as another book-length essay, ''[[The Evidence of Things Not Seen]]'' (1985), an extended reflection on race inspired by the [[Atlanta murders of 1979–1981]].

=== Saint-Paul-de-Vence ===
[[File:James Baldwin in his house in Saint-Paul de Vence.JPG|thumb| Baldwin at home in [[Saint-Paul-de-Vence]], France]]
[[File:HouseBaldwinStPaul.jpg|thumb|The house where Baldwin lived and died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France]]
Baldwin lived in France for most of his later life, using it as a base of operations for extensive international travel.<ref name=":2" /><ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20091028155812/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761571268/James_Baldwin.html James Baldwin]." [[Encarta|''MSN'' ''Encarta'']]. [[Microsoft]]. 2009. Archived from the [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761571268/James_Baldwin.html original] on October 31, 2009.</ref><ref>{{Cite book  | last =Zaborowska | first = Magdalena| title = James Baldwin's Turkish Decade: Erotics of Exile  | publisher = Duke University Press| year = 2008 | isbn = 978-0-8223-4144-4 }}</ref> Baldwin settled in [[Saint-Paul-de-Vence]] in the [[south of France]] in 1970, in an old Provençal house beneath the [[Rampart (fortification)|ramparts]] of the village.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1440445.ece|title=Freelance {{!}} On breaking into James Baldwin's house|website=TLS|first=Douglas|last=Field|date=July 30, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304194351/http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1440445.ece|archive-date=March 4, 2016|access-date=March 27, 2018}}</ref> His house was always open to his friends, who frequently visited him while on trips to the [[French Riviera]]. American painter [[Beauford Delaney]] made Baldwin's house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence his second home, often setting up his easel in the garden. Delaney painted several colorful portraits of Baldwin. [[Fred Nall Hollis]] also befriended Baldwin during this time. Actors [[Harry Belafonte]] and [[Sidney Poitier]] were also regular guests.

Many of Baldwin's musician friends dropped in during the [[Jazz à Juan]] and [[Nice Jazz Festival]]s. They included [[Nina Simone]], [[Josephine Baker]] (whose sister lived in Nice), [[Miles Davis]], and [[Ray Charles]].<ref>Roullier, Alain. 1998. [https://books.google.com/books?id=PlggAQAAIAAJ&q=ray%20charles ''Le Gardien des âmes''] [''The Guardian of Souls''], France Europe éditions livres, p. 534.</ref> In his autobiography, Miles Davis wrote:<ref>[[Davis, Miles]]. 1989. [https://books.google.com/books?id=SPcTAQAAIAAJ ''Miles: The Autobiography''], edited by [[Quincy Troupe]]. [[Simon & Schuster]], {{ISBN|9780671635046}}.</ref>

<blockquote>I'd read his books and I liked and respected what he had to say. As I got to know Jimmy we opened up to each other and became real great friends. Every time I went to southern France to play [[Antibes]], I would always spend a day or two out at Jimmy's house in St. Paul de Vence. We'd just sit there in that great big beautiful house of his telling us all kinds of stories, lying our asses off.... He was a great man.</blockquote>

Baldwin learned to speak French fluently and developed friendships with French actor [[Yves Montand]] and French writer [[Marguerite Yourcenar]], who translated Baldwin's play ''[[The Amen Corner]]'' into French.

Baldwin spent 17 years, until his death in 1987, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in the south-east between Nice and Cannes.<ref name=":1" /> The years he spent there were also years of work. Sitting in front of his sturdy typewriter, he devoted his days to writing and to answering the huge amount of mail he received from all over the world. He wrote several of his last works in his house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, including ''[[Just Above My Head]]'' in 1979 and ''Evidence of Things Not Seen'' in 1985. It was also in Saint-Paul-de-Vence that Baldwin wrote his "Open Letter to My Sister, [[Angela Y. Davis]]" in November 1970.<ref>Baldwin, James. November 19, 1970. [http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/itcitmbaldwin.html "An Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Y. Davis"], via ''History is a Weapon''.</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Baldwin|first=James|date=January 7, 1971|title=An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis|journal=New York Review of Books|language=en|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/01/07/an-open-letter-to-my-sister-miss-angela-davis/|access-date=August 25, 2020|issn=0028-7504}}</ref>

His last novel, ''Harlem Quartet'', was published in 1987.<ref name=MeislerLATimes1987>{{cite news|first=Stanley|last=Meisler|url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/archives/la-me-james-baldwin-19871202-story.html|title=From the Archives: James Baldwin Dies at 63; Writer Explored Black Experience|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=December 2, 1987}}</ref>