Novelist & Essayist · American · b. August 2, 1924 · d. December 1, 1987
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist. His essays, collected in *Notes of a Native Son* (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western society, most notably in regard to the mid-twentieth-century United States. Some of Baldwin's essays are book-length, including *The Fire Next Time* (1963), *No Name in the Street* (1972), and *The Devil Finds Work* (1976). His novel *Go Tell It on the Mountain* (1953) was ranked by Time magazine in 2005 as one of the 100 best English-language novels released from 1923 to 2005. Baldwin's work fictionalizes fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures.
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