The Fire Next Time

Description

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963,The Fire Next Timegalvanized the nation, gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today.

“Basically the finest essay I’ve ever read.. . . Baldwin refused to hold anyone’s hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates

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 from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. 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 byThe New York Times Book Reviewas “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,”The Fire Next Timestands as a classic of literature.