Sonny's Blues

James Baldwin
(1924–1987)

James Baldwin, the son of a revivalist minister, was born, raised and schooled in New York's Harlem. His early literary promise brought him to the attention of black expatriate writer Richard Wright, who helped Baldwin win a fellowship to forward work on his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, published in 1953, based on his own Harlem childhood and adolescence. This novel, like the two that followed, Giovanni's Room (1956) and Another Country (1962), deals with the problems of racial and sexual identity, problems that affected Baldwin himself deeply and led him to seek self-imposed exile in Paris from 1948 to 1957 under the aegis of a series of prestigious fellowships.

Baldwin's other work includes the novels Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), and Just Above My Head (1979); several volumes of essays, Notes of a Native Son (1955), Nobody Knows My Name (1961), The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), The Devil Finds Work (1976), and The Price of the Ticket. Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985 (1985); a study of the Atlanta youth murders in 1981, The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985), in which Baldwin returned to his old theme of black-white relations in America; a volume of collected stories, Going to Meet the Man (1965); and two plays, Blues for Mister Charlie (1964) and The Amen Corner (1968). "The final and most persuasive assumption found in Baldwin's art," one recent critic has written, "is that all of mankind is united by virtue of their humanity. Consequently, the ultimate purpose of the writer, from Baldwin's perspective, is to discover that sphere of commonality where, although differences exist, those dissimilarities are stripped of their power to block communication and stifle human intercourse."

Baldwin's short story, "Sonny's Blues" (1975), draws upon his experiences with street musicians he met as a child in Harlem and the influence of their music.

Stagolee: James Baldwin's Foreword

James Baldwin contrasts the hopelessness of his own youth with the period of African-American experience of Bobby Seale, author of Stagolee.

James Baldwin

This site includes a biography, selected bibliography, and suggestions for further reading.

"Sonny's Blues"