On James Baldwin

Acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín first read James Baldwin just after turning eighteen. He had completed his first year at an Irish university and was struggling to free himself from a religious upbringing. Inspired by the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, Tóibín found a writer who would be a lifelong companion and exemplar. From On James Baldwin: Baldwin was interested in the hidden and dramatic areas in his own being, and was prepared as a writer to explore difficult truths about his own private life. In his fiction, he had to battle for the right of his protagonists to choose or influence their destinies. He knew about guilt and rage and bitter privacies in a way that few of his White novelist contemporaries did. And this was not simply because he was Black and homosexual; the difference arose from the very nature of his talent, from the texture of his sensibility. "All art," he wrote, "is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up." On James Baldwin is a magnificent contemporary author's tribute to one of his most consequential literary progenitors.

About the Author :
Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah's Book Club Pick; The Magician, winner of The Writers' Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the 2022-2024 Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. He was shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize. He was also awarded the Bodley Medal, the Würth Prize for European Literature, and the Prix Femina spécial for his body of work. Originally from Ireland, Gary Furlong has worked as a teacher in Niigata, Japan; a puppeteer in Prague; an improv artist in Memphis; and a festival performer in Ireland. A naturally gifted mimic, Gary began narrating audiobooks for a living in 2015 and hasn't looked back. Gary specializes in accents and dialect, with fluency in Irish, British RP, and Standard American. In four years of working full-time with audiobook production, Gary has narrated over 100 audiobooks spanning fantasy, thriller, romance, YA, and nonfiction for world-class publishing houses and independent authors. In 2018 Gary won a much coveted AudioFile Earphones Award and the Independent Audiobook Award for Romance. He now lives in Texas with his wife and their golden retriever called "Gansey," which means "Sweater" in Irish Gaelic. Originally from Ireland, Gary Furlong has worked as a teacher in Niigata, Japan; a puppeteer in Prague; an improv artist in Memphis; and a festival performer in Ireland. A naturally gifted mimic, Gary began narrating audiobooks for a living in 2015 and hasn't looked back. Gary specializes in accents and dialect, with fluency in Irish, British RP, and Standard American. In four years of working full-time with audiobook production, Gary has narrated over 100 audiobooks spanning fantasy, thriller, romance, YA, and nonfiction for world-class publishing houses and independent authors. In 2018 Gary won a much coveted AudioFile Earphones Award and the Independent Audiobook Award for Romance. He now lives in Texas with his wife and their golden retriever called "Gansey," which means "Sweater" in Irish Gaelic.

Review :
"Emphasiz(es) Baldwin's place on the world's literary stage." -- " Wall Street Journal" "The great achievement of On James Baldwin is the same as what Baldwin hoped for himself: to write about the human condition without confinement to race, religion, and sexual orientation." -- "New York Sun" "Tóibín delivers an intimate reading of the American writer's work in this astute, accessible book." -- "Irish Times"