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Summary
Summary
"A scrupulous biography."― Publishers Weekly
"A fresh, incisive, and uplifting biography."― Kirkus
Bill Mullen celebrates the personal and political life of the great American writer who refused to shy away from controversary and hate and created some of the most important literary work of his time, including the novels Go Tell it to the Mountain, If Beale Street Could talk, Another Country, and Just Above My Head . It is essential reading for anyone who wants to truly understand this towering literary and political figure and everyone who understand that imperialism and racism are as dangerous today as in Baldwin's time.
As a lifelong radical, anti-imperialist, black queer advocate, feminist and pro-Palestinian, the life and writing of James Baldwin (1924-1987) has been an inspiration to generations and his words continue to resonate through our culture at large. Mullen explores how Baldwin's life and work channel the long history of the African American. Fighting towards what he hoped would be a post-racial society, Baldwin's philosophy was tragically ahead of its time. Table of Contents:
Preface: James Baldwin--A Revolutionary for Our Time
1.Baptism by Fire: Childhood and Youth, 1924-42
2.Dissidence, Disillusionment, Resistance: 1942-48
3.Political Exile and Survival: 1948-57
4.Paying His Dues: 1957-63
5.Baldwin and Black Power: 19963-68
6.Morbid Symptoms and Optimism of the Will: 1968-79
7.Final Acts
Postscript: Baldwin's Queer Legacies
Mullen writes in his Preface, "Baldwin developed a capacious, revolutionary theory and proactive of lived resistance to capitalism, imperialism, and oppression fueled by a lifetime of study, engagement, and creative tension with the most dissident pollical political movements in the US and around the world. In 1961, at the age of 37, Baldwin name this dissidence 'revolution'...'
As racist and reactionary forces rise across the world, this is an essential guide to the life and legacy of one of America's most important radical voices.
Author Notes
Bill V. Mullen is Professor of American Studies at Purdue University. He is co-editor with Ashley Dawson of Against Apartheid: The Case for Boycotting Israeli Universities (Haymarket, 2015). He is the author of W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line (Pluto Press, 2016).
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Arguing James Baldwin (1924--1987) was the "first African-American radical to make his sexuality" key to his activism, Mullen (W.E.B. Du Bois), an American Studies professor at Purdue University, offers a scrupulous, if somewhat niche in its specifically political focus, biography. Contending that Baldwin's commitment to public action has been unappreciated by previous scholars, Mullen reveals the early "impress of leftist political thought" on Baldwin during his upbringing in Depression-era Harlem, finding evidence for the "prominence of queer sexuality in young Baldwin's life and writing" in early notes outlining a more explicit version of his 1953 debut novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Mullen then attends to Baldwin's myriad political involvements and concerns, stretching from the American setting of the civil rights, Black Power, and anti--Vietnam War movements, to the international scene of his later "diasporic wanderings" in Europe and the Middle East. The book then considers Baldwin's "final acts" and "queer legacies" during the 1980s as a prescient opponent of Reagan conservatism and an intellectual precursor to the "flourishing of black feminism and queer politics." More an account of Baldwin's ideological evolution than of his life, this study cannot compete with David Leeming's 1994 Baldwin biography for breadth or depth, but readers aligned with Baldwin's political sympathies will appreciate Mullen's insights. (Oct.)
Kirkus Review
A concise biography of the celebrated black author's radical voice.Mullen (American Studies/Purdue Univ.; W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line, 2016, etc.) believes the time is right for a new biography of Baldwin (1924-1987), one that focuses on his political life and development. He argues that Baldwin's role in campaigns for social justice has been "underappreciated," and his emergence as an "icon of the global Black Lives Matter movement" requires a new assessment of him as a popular-culture touchstone. Also, as a queer black man, he is now seen as a forerunner in today's debates on gender and race issues. Mullen's approach is chronological: He moves from Baldwin's youth as the oldest of nine children in a poor Harlem family to his radical student years and development as a writer to his years abroad (Paris, Istanbul) and his return to America to become a tireless, politically astute spokesman for civil and sexual rights, including AIDS. As poet Amiri Baraka noted at his funeral, Baldwin served as "God's revolutionary black mouth." Paralleling Baldwin's personal story, Mullen deftly recounts the historical backdropthe Vietnam War and protests, the Young People's Socialist League, the Communist Party in America, the Palestinian liberation movement, the Nation of Islam, Black Power, Malcolm X, and the FBI's relentless and crushing surveillance of Baldwin and black radicalsto more clearly assess Baldwin's substantial role in the political and literary worlds from the 1940s to the 1980s. Throughout, Mullen discusses Baldwin as an influential novelist, playwright, essayist, and critic, quoting generously from his works. Giovanni's Room was an "avatar of contemporary gay literature." In The Fire Next Time, "Baldwin's combined role as mentor, historian, and advocate for struggle on the streets found its literary complement." A "somber, simmering, angry novel," If Beale Street Could Talk is his "most damning single fictional indictment of the criminal justice system."A fresh, incisive, and uplifting biography/social history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
James Baldwin was a writer for all seasons, the author of best-selling novels, essays, plays, and sociopolitical journalism published in the leading magazines of the day. His name is now much in the news, thanks to the recent adaptation of his novel If Beale Street Could Talk into a major motion picture. This biography, the first of Baldwin in 10 years, will bring his life and work further attention, as will his recent discovery by the Black Lives Matter movement. Finally, Baldwin an unapologetic gay man and his work have helped inspire the field of Black queer studies. Mullen offers an informative outline of Baldwin's peripatetic life he was famously an expat in France and also in Turkey, where he wrote some of his most famous books. It is those books and the evolution of Baldwin as a thinker, however, and not the particulars of his personal life, that receive the lion's share of Mullen's attention. Analyses of both specific texts and underlying thought are lucid and well considered, the result being a valuable addition to Baldwin literature.--Michael Cart Copyright 2010 Booklist
Table of Contents
Illustrations | p. vi |
Preface: James Baldwin-A Revolutionary For Our Time | p. ix |
1 Baptism by Fire: Childhood and Youth, 1924-42 | p. 1 |
2 Dissidence, Disillusionment, Resistance: 1942-48 | p. 22 |
3 Political Exile and Survival: 1948-57 | p. 47 |
4 Paying His Dues: 1957-63 | p. 73 |
5 Baldwin and Black Power: 1963-68 | p. 101 |
6 Morbid Symptoms and Optimism of the Will: 1968-79 | p. 134 |
7 Final Acts | p. 164 |
Postscript: Baldwin's Queer Legacies | p. 187 |
Notes | p. 189 |
Acknowledgments | p. 217 |
Index | p. 222 |