No Name in the Street: (Penguin Modern Classics)

A short, powerful memoir from one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century In this deeply personal book, Baldwin reflects on the experiences that shaped him as a writer and activist- from his childhood in Harlem to the deaths Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Exploring the visceral reality of life in the American South as well as Baldwin's impressions of London, Paris and Hamburg, No Name in the Street grapples with the failed promises of global liberation movements in fearless, candid prose. Timeless, tender and profound, Baldwin's searing narrative contains the multiplicities of what it means to be Black in America and, indeed, around the world.

About the Author :
James Baldwin was born in 1924 in New York. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), which evokes his experiences as a boy preacher in Harlem, was an immediate success. Baldwin's second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956) has become a landmark of gay literature and Another Country (1962) caused a literary sensation. His searing essay collections Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961) contain many of the works that made him an influential figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Baldwin published several other collections of non-fiction, including The Fire Next Time (1963) and No Name in the Street (1972). His short stories are collected in Going to Meet the Man (1965). His later works include the novels Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979). James Baldwin won a number of literary fellowships- a Eugene F. Saxon Memorial Trust Award, a Rosenwald Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Partisan Review Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant. He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1986. He died in 1987 in France

Review :
Baldwin’s essayistic reflections are often marked by the personal: he uses anecdotes from his own life to uncover more universal truths . . . the clarity, fire and empathetic humanity of his voice is needed now more than ever A strikingly personal book… an assessment of where the traumatic events of the late-1960s left Americans, both white and black… Baldwin’s prose style is as striking in No Name in the Street as in many of his other essays… [his] words still burn on the page There is still pleasure in his inimitable voice. That voice was heard aloud in the debates and interviews he gave which made Baldwin a great example of that extinct species, the public intellectual It contains truth that cannot be denied If Van Gogh was our 19th century artist-saint then James Baldwin is our 20th century one Mesmerizing... as candid, insightful and moving as any in his previous essays... His message is finally as basic as it is undeniable: If we do not love one another, we will destroy one another Praise for James Baldwin Baldwin wrote in arias of feeling and thought… [He] proved that if he wrote it down, it could have power beyond the moment He was one of our best essayists in the best American gadfly tradition What makes his essays so compelling is that he insists on being personal, on forcing the public and the political to submit to his voice and the test of his experience and his observation