The author and activist James Baldwin was born 100 years ago on 2 August 1924.
Baldwin grew up in Harlem, New York. After a childhood dominated by his overbearing stepfather, he bought a one-way ticket to Europe at the age of twenty-four and spent most of the rest of his life in Paris and Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the south of France. In the 1960s he became an influential figure in the American civil rights movement, appearing regularly on television debates and joining the March on Washington in 1963 alongside his film-star friends Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier.
To celebrate Baldwin’s 100th birthday you could read his influential polemic The Fire Next Time, his exquisite novella Giovanni’s Room about same-sex love or his masterpiece Another Country, but today I’m recommending his short fifth novel If Beale Street Could Talk, which was first published 50 years ago, in June 1974.
Tish is nineteen and pregnant. Fonny, the father of her child, is in prison. Tish hopes to win justice for Fonny and secure his release before the baby is born.
If Beale Street Could Talk is both a tender love story and a damning indictment of a failed justice system.
Barry Jenkins released an Oscar-winning film adaptation of the novel in 2018.
Baldwin took his title from W. C. Handy’s 1917 song ‘Beale Street Blues’. Listen to Louis Armstrong singing it here.
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