Ingmar Bergman
- Filmmaker
Depicts
An afternoon with Bergman in Stockholm, and the closest thing in the collection to a straight profile.
Nobody Knows My Name
Thirteen essays from the years Baldwin came home: Harlem, the segregated South, a writers' congress at the Sorbonne, and the end of his friendship with Richard Wright.
- 1961
- 256
About James Baldwin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeJames Baldwin's second essay collection, published by Dial Press in 1961 and subtitled More Notes of a Native Son. Thirteen pieces written between 1954 and 1961, the years in which he came back from Paris, travelled through the segregated South for the first time at thirty-two, and became a writer American magazines commissioned rather than one they occasionally printed. It closes with two portraits of other writers: Richard Wright, who had died the year before, and Norman Mailer, who had not.
The story, in more detail
The book is arranged in two parts, titled with a sentence split across them: "Sitting in the House…" and "…With Everything on My Mind". The first part is reportage and argument, mostly about America. The second is criticism and portraiture, mostly about other writers.
The reporting is the reason to read it. Baldwin went south in 1957 on assignment, at thirty-two, having never been below Washington, and "A Fly in Buttermilk" and the title essay come out of that trip. "Fifth Avenue, Uptown" does the same work in the Harlem he grew up in.
The last two essays are about friendships that went wrong in public. "Alas, Poor Richard" was written just after Richard Wright's death in 1960 and returns to the argument that had separated them since 1949. "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy" is about Norman Mailer, who was alive to read it.
Why we recommend it
It is the one with the reporting in it
Baldwin went south in 1957 and wrote about it as someone seeing it for the first time. That position — an American who had to travel to find his own country — is what these essays have that the others do not.
Two writers, up close
The Richard Wright essay and the Norman Mailer essay are the frankest things Baldwin wrote about other novelists, and he wrote them about men he knew rather than books he had read.
Princes and Powers
A long piece of straight reporting on the 1956 writers' congress at the Sorbonne, and the best record here of what the Paris years actually put him in the room for.
What this book explores
Real people in this book
Norman Mailer
- Author
- Journalist
Depicts
One of the two writer portraits the collection closes on — and unlike the Wright pieces, its subject was alive to read it.
Richard Wright
- Author
- Poet
- Journalist
Depicts
The collection closes on three linked pieces about Wright, written just after his death in 1960 — a review, a memoir of their Paris years, and a reckoning with the argument that had separated them since 1949.
Stories in its pages
The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American
What nine years in Europe taught him about the country he had left. It opens the book.
Princes and Powers
The 1956 Congress of Negro-African Writers and Artists at the Sorbonne, reported at length, and the one essay here set in Paris.
Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from Harlem
The neighbourhood he was raised in, written as reporting rather than memory.
East River, Downtown: Postscript to a Letter from Harlem
A shorter follow-up, prompted by a protest at the United Nations.
A Fly in Buttermilk
A Black student integrating a Southern high school, and the adults on both sides of it.
Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter from the South
The title essay, out of Baldwin's first trip below Washington in 1957, at thirty-two.
Faulkner and Desegregation
On William Faulkner's public statements about the pace of integration, and what "go slow" asks of the people waiting.
In Search of a Majority
Adapted from an address at Kalamazoo College in February 1960.
Notes for a Hypothetical Novel
A talk given at San Francisco State College in October 1960 about a novel he had not written.
The Male Prison
On André Gide, his marriage, and what Gide would not write down.
The Northern Protestant
An afternoon with Ingmar Bergman in Stockholm, and the closest thing here to a straight profile.
Alas, Poor Richard
Three linked pieces on Richard Wright, written just after his death in 1960 — a review, a memoir of Paris, and a reckoning.
The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy
On Norman Mailer, whom Baldwin liked, and on what white writers wanted from him. It closes the book.
Timeline
1956
Baldwin reports the Congress of Negro-African Writers and Artists at the Sorbonne for Encounter.
1957
He travels through the American South for the first time, at thirty-two.
1960
Richard Wright dies in Paris in November.
1961
Dial Press publishes the thirteen essays as Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son.
1992
Vintage International issues the standard paperback.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Dial Press
- 1961
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 1992
- 9780679744733
Reader reviews
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Another Country
The novel he was finishing while writing most of these, published the year after.
Read our takeNobody Knows My Name: frequently asked questions
What is Nobody Knows My Name about?
Thirteen essays by James Baldwin, published in 1961. They cover Harlem, his first trip through the segregated American South, a writers' congress in Paris, and portraits of other writers including Richard Wright, Norman Mailer, André Gide and the film director Ingmar Bergman.
How many essays are in Nobody Knows My Name?
Thirteen, arranged in two parts. Most had appeared first in magazines — Esquire, Harper's, Partisan Review, Encounter and The New York Times Book Review — between 1954 and 1961.
Is Nobody Knows My Name a sequel to Notes of a Native Son?
Directly. The subtitle is More Notes of a Native Son, and it collects the essays Baldwin wrote in the six years after the first book. The standard Vintage paperback drops the subtitle from its cover, which is why it is often listed without it.
What is the essay about Richard Wright?
"Alas, Poor Richard", written just after Wright died in Paris in November 1960. It is in three parts and returns to the 1949 essay "Everybody's Protest Novel", which had used Wright's Native Son as its example and ended the friendship between them. Wright had helped Baldwin win the fellowship that first got him to Paris.
Should I read this before or after Notes of a Native Son?
After. The first collection is the stronger book and the better introduction, and this one is written as a continuation of it. If you have read that and want more Baldwin at the same length, this is the next one.
Which essay is set in Paris?
"Princes and Powers", a long report on the 1956 Congress of Negro-African Writers and Artists held at the Sorbonne, which brought together writers from across Africa, the Caribbean and the United States. It first ran in Encounter in January 1957.