“To be James Baldwin is to touch on so many hidden places in Europe, in America, the Negro, the white man—to be forced to understand so much.”

—Alfred Kazin

“This author retains a place in an extremely select group: that composed of the few genuinely indispensible American writers.”

— Saturday Review

“He has not himself lost access to the source of his being—which is what makes him read and awaited by perhaps a wider range of people than any other major American writer.”

— The Nation

“He is thought-provoking, tantalizing, irritating, abusing and amusing. And he uses words as the sea uses waves, to flow and beat, advance and retreat, rise and take a bow in disappearing … the thought becomes poetry and the poetry illuminates the thought.”

—Langston Hughes

“He has become one of the few writers of our time.”

—Norman Mailer F2RdxU3nTKt9Ongrxl9wpMAHKFldGRemVSvXDK+GXB1ZFjuFb4l5UN/sWWVG56VV