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The Fire Next Time

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The Fire Next Time

By: James Baldwin
Narrated by: Jesse L. Martin
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Brought to you by Penguin.

'We, the black and the white, deeply need each other here if we are really to become a nation'

James Baldwin's impassioned plea to 'end the racial nightmare' in America was a bestseller when it appeared in 1963, galvanising a nation and giving voice to the emerging civil rights movement. Told in the form of two intensely personal 'letters', The Fire Next Time is at once a powerful evocation of Baldwin's early life in Harlem and an excoriating condemnation of the terrible legacy of racial injustice.

'Jesse L Martin... highlights the rhythmic nature of Baldwin’s prose, and channels his anger and devastation at the unceasing suffering of Black Americans.' (The Guardian)

'A seminal meditation on race by one of our greatest writers.' (Barack Obama)

'Sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle...all presented in searing, brilliant prose.' (The New York Times Book Review)

©1963 James Baldwin (P)2024 Penguin Audio

 African American Studies Americas Freedom & Security Politics & Government Racism & Discrimination Social Sciences Specific Demographics United States
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Critic Reviews

His prophetic warning . . . Baldwin’s words can still bring clarity to our conversations about injustice today
Riveting . . . part of Baldwin's enduring power is that he was not a political thinker. He was interested in the soul's dark spaces much more than in the body politic. (Colm Toibin)
The great poet-prophet of the civil rights movement ... his seminal work
Sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle . . . all presented in searing, brilliant prose
Baldwin writes with great passion ... it reeks of truth, as the ghettoes of New York and London, Chicago and Manchester reek of our hypocrisy
A true prophet . . . his thought and its utterance are nothing less than majestical (Mario Puzo)
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