James Baldwin: The Life Album (Black Lives)

An intimate portrait of James Baldwin, offering a new understanding of his life and works as seen through his close relationships and private life“Baldwin authority Zaborowska’s gracefully impassioned biography. . . . A creatively conceived appreciation for a decorated life and its far-flung influences on race, queer culture, and art.”-Kirkus Reviews James Baldwin (1924-1987) was a pivotal figure of the twentieth century, an influential author, intellectual, and activist who led a celebrated public life-and whose words and image and persona remain current in our culture.Baldwin’s many incarnations-“son of Harlem,” “Black icon,” “great twentieth-century writer,” “race man,” “prophet,” “witness”-have reemerged in the digital age as Baldwin’s work becomes a touchstone for a new generation.It is the private, vulnerable, and messier Baldwin-the man behind the prophet and the online meme-who is the focus of this book. Magdalena J. Zaborowska draws on Baldwin’s archives and material legacy-fr