#26 on The Guardian's list of 100 best nonfiction books of all time the essays explore what it
means to be Black in America In an age of Black Lives Matter James Baldwin's essays on life in
Harlem the protest novel movies and African Americans abroad are as powerful today as when
they were first written. With films like I Am Not Your Negro and the forthcoming If Beale
Street Could Talk bringing renewed interest to Baldwin's life and work Notes of a Native Son
serves as a valuable introduction. Written during the 1940s and early 1950s when Baldwin was
only in his twenties the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black
life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly
gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost
intellectuals of that era. Writing as an artist activist and social critic Baldwin probes
the complex condition of being black in America. With a keen eye he examines everything from
the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of the many black
expatriates of the time from his home in The Harlem Ghetto to a sobering Journey to Atlanta.
Notes of a Native Son inaugurated Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic
social changes erupting in the United States in the twentieth century and many of his
observations have proven almost prophetic. His criticism on topics such as the paternalism of
white progressives or on his own friend Richard Wright's work is pointed and unabashed. He was
also one of the few writing on race at the time who addressed the issue with a powerful mixture
of outrage at the gross physical and political violence against black citizens and measured
understanding of their oppressors which helped awaken a white audience to the injustices under
their noses. Naturally this combination of brazen criticism and unconventional empathy for
white readers won Baldwin as much condemnation as praise. Notes is the book that established
Baldwin's voice as a social critic and it remains one of his most admired works. The essays
collected here create a cohesive sketch of black America and reveal an intimate portrait of
Baldwin's own search for identity as an artist as a black man and as an American.
