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Paris, Harlem

In search of James Baldwin
by
March 2025, no. 473

On James Baldwin by Colm Tóibín

Brandeis University Press US$19.95 hb, 147 pp

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Paris, Harlem

In search of James Baldwin
by
March 2025, no. 473

Colm Tóibín has that special distinction among contemporary writers of being both a first-rate novelist and an acutely discerning critic. In recent years, as well as publishing some magnificent novels, among them Brooklyn (2009), Nora Webster (2014), and Long Island (2024), he has written searching critical studies of other writers, including Elizabeth Bishop (2015). His latest critical work, On James Baldwin, was published in 2024 to coincide with the centenary of Baldwin’s birth. It grew out of the Mandel Lectures in the Humanities that Tóibín delivered at Brandeis University, but it also draws on a long and passionate engagement with Baldwin’s work, including an essay on Baldwin and Barack Obama published in the New York Review of Books in 2008.

On James Baldwin

On James Baldwin

by Colm Tóibín

Brandeis University Press US$19.95 hb, 147 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

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