James Baldwin (1924-1987) was educated in New York. His first
novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, received excellent reviews and
was immediately recognized as establishing a profound and permanent
new voice in American letters. The appearance of The Fire Next Time
in 1963, just as the civil rights movement was exploding across the
American South, galvanized the nation and continues to reverberate
as perhaps the most prophetic and defining statement ever written
of the continuing costs of Americans' refusal to face their own
history. It became a national bestseller, and Baldwin was featured
on the cover of Time. The next year, he was made a member of the
National Institute of Arts and Letters and collaborated with the
photographer Richard Avedon on Nothing Personal, a series of
portraits of America intended as a eulogy for the slain Medger
Evers. His other collaborations include A Rap on Race with Margaret
Mead and A Dialogue with the poet-activist Nikki Giovanni. He also
adapted Alex Haley's The Autobiography of Malcolm X into One Day
When I Was Lost. He was made a commander of the French Legion of
Honor a year before his death, one honor among many he achieved in
his life.
Jesse Martin is an accomplished actor and singer on the stage and
screen. He has spent nine seasons as Detective Edward Green on the
perennial hit Law & Order. In the theater, Martin originated the
role of Thomas B. "Tom" Collins in Jonathan Larson's award-winning
musical Rent. He also reprised his role in the film adaptation. An
alumnus of NYU and a classically trained stage actor, Martin
currently resides in Manhattan.
"So eloquent in its passion and so scorching in its candor that it is bound to unsettle any reader. As a novelist and writer of uncommon talent, James Baldwin plunges to the human heart of the matter."
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