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The Fire Next Time
by James Baldwin · 1963
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From Amazon.com: A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle...all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.
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"Basically the finest essay I've ever read. Baldwin refused to hold anyone's hand."
"Baldwin's powerful exploration of race, religion, and American identity in the 1960s aligns with Ta-Nehisi Coates's own work examining the Black experience and systemic racism."
Ta-Nehisi Coates's NYPL Reading List ·
nypl.org
"I still remember the first time I read 'The Fire Next Time.' It was a hard book, with a tough perspective on race in America. But then in the end... he was able to bring me to a high again. The last page or so of that book are some of my favorite pages of literature. They're like a tattoo on my heart."
""The Fire Next Time" brought me closer to my fiancé. He read it and really began to talk to me about the book and race. It's a beautiful thing."
"My favorite book to assign, besides "The Fire Next Time," is Toni Morrison's novel "Beloved." I have been teaching both books for over 20 years."
""The Fire Next Time," by James Baldwin. And read it again every year of your life. The text keeps changing and I realize that part of what makes Baldwin such a force of nature is his relationship to history."
"Like a lot of people, I suspect, given the political situation, I've been rereading James Baldwin. I'm working through the Library of America edition of the collected essays."
"If forced to name a single one, it would have to be Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. He captured our present before it had even happened."
"Not just because it would give him a better understanding of race relations in America and why it is urgent we do something to address the disparity, but because in understanding that one aspect, he will better understand the needs of all Americans."