It was all he ever planned to do with his life -- being a writer. Writing was the craft to which James Baldwin had dedicated himself, even as a schoolboy, and early pieces won praise from his teachers and friends. Everything in his background would seem to have belied the possibilities that he would have succeeded.

Born illegitimately to a mother in Harlem, the son of a father he never knew, James took the last name of a manic factory worker and storefront preacher who had become his step-father and who died in an asylum in 1943. Persuaded by his intense persona, the teenage Baldwin became a Pentecostal minister, but his abiding commitment remained to his writing. He wrote his first story at the age of 12 and continued, turning full-time to writing in 1943. In New York, he met Richard Wright who encouraged him, assisting in securing the young writer his first fellowship. Baldwin submitted his work to publishers who rejected his early works. Later, however, his book reviews and essays in journals such as The New Leader, The Nation, Commentary, and The Partisan Review brought him attention and acclaim.

With monies from a Rosenwald Fellowship, he bought a one-way ticket to Paris, and in 1948, Baldwin moved to Europe, hoping, in part, to find sanctuary from the enervating and suffocating racism of the United States. That search was not rewarded, however, and he became convinced that American racism was only European racism transplanted. He remained in Europe for about 8 years after which he returned to New York. In the 1960's he joined the civil rights movement, denouncing the increasing violence the movement suffered, and he grew convinced that violence might be the only means for resolving racial divisions in America. Embittered, Baldwin returned to France for the last two decades of his life where he died of cancer in 1987.

James Baldwin's major works include novels, a play, a collection of short stories, and many essays and reviews. He published his first novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain, in 1953, and continued work on his drama, The Amen Corner, published in 1955. Giovani's Room (1956) and Another Country (1962) openly addressed issues of homosexuality, gay discrimination, and questions of identity. Collections of essays, including Notes of a Native Son (1955), Nobody Knows My Name (1961), and The Fire Next Time (1963) are insightful critiques of American culture that secured his place as a major American writer.