Richard Wright
- Author
- Poet
- Journalist
Depicts
The collection opens with the attack on protest fiction that took Wright's Native Son as its central example and ended the friendship. Wright had helped Baldwin win the fellowship that got him to Paris.
Notes of a Native Son
Ten essays, a stepfather's funeral on the day Harlem burned, and eight days in a Paris jail.
- 1955
About James Baldwin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeJames Baldwin's first collection of essays, published by Beacon Press in 1955 when he was thirty. Ten pieces, most of them written for magazines in the years either side of his move to Paris, running from a demolition of protest fiction to a Swiss village where nobody had seen a Black man before. The title essay is about his stepfather's funeral, which fell on the day of the 1943 Harlem riot and on Baldwin's nineteenth birthday. It is the book most readers should start with.
The story, in more detail
The essays were written for magazines — Harper's, Partisan Review, The New Leader, Commentary — between the mid-1940s and 1955, and they cover the years in which Baldwin stopped being a promising young reviewer in Greenwich Village and became a writer in Paris.
That makes the collection accidentally autobiographical. It opens with the argument about protest fiction that ended his friendship with Richard Wright, moves through Harlem and a trip to Atlanta, arrives at the title essay and his stepfather's funeral, and then leaves the country: an encounter on the Seine, a question of identity, eight days in a French jail, and a Swiss village at the end. The book goes where he went.
Baldwin was thirty when Beacon published it. He had one novel out and a reputation as an essayist that this book largely created.
Guides to this book
Quotes from Notes of a Native Son
I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.
Joyce is right about history being a nightmare—but it may be the nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
Why we recommend it
The best place to start
Baldwin is a greater essayist than novelist and the essays are shorter, which matters while you are still deciding whether a writer is for you.
The title essay
A funeral, a riot and a birthday on one day, held together without strain. It is among the finest essays written in English in the last century.
It is the Paris years from inside
"Equal in Paris" and "Stranger in the Village" were written in Europe about being there, and they are the clearest record of what the move actually gave him.
What this book explores
Real people in this book
Stories in its pages
Everybody's Protest Novel
The attack on protest fiction, with Richard Wright's Native Son as its example. It ended their friendship.
Many Thousands Gone
The argument continued, and the harder of the two pieces.
Carmen Jones: The Dark Is Light Enough
On the 1954 film, and what Hollywood did with an all-Black cast.
The Harlem Ghetto
The neighbourhood he grew up in, reported rather than remembered.
Journey to Atlanta
A gospel quartet, his own brother among them, taken south as campaign decoration by a political party.
Notes of a Native Son
His stepfather's funeral, on the day of the 1943 Harlem riot and his own nineteenth birthday. The best thing in the book.
Encounter on the Seine: Black Meets Brown
Black Americans and colonial Africans meeting in Paris, and finding less in common than either expected.
A Question of Identity
The American student colony in Paris, and what it is actually looking for.
Equal in Paris
The eight days he spent in a French jail over Christmas 1949, arrested over a stolen hotel sheet.
Stranger in the Village
A Swiss village where nobody had seen a Black man before, and what that let him see about America.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Beacon Press
- 1955
- Paperback
- Beacon Press
- 2012
- 9780807006238
Reader reviews
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Read our take
Notes of a Native Son: frequently asked questions
What is Notes of a Native Son about?
Ten essays by James Baldwin, published in 1955. They cover Harlem, protest fiction, film, a trip to Atlanta, and his first years in Europe. The title essay is about his stepfather's funeral, which fell on the day of the 1943 Harlem riot and on Baldwin's nineteenth birthday.
Is Notes of a Native Son a good place to start with James Baldwin?
Yes, and it is usually the best one. Baldwin is a stronger essayist than novelist, the pieces are short, and this collection contains three of the best things he wrote. If you would rather read a single short book, The Fire Next Time is about a hundred pages.
Is it related to Richard Wright's Native Son?
Deliberately. The book opens with "Everybody's Protest Novel," which argues that fiction written to protest racism reduces its Black characters to cases rather than people, and takes Wright's Native Son as its example. Wright had helped Baldwin win the fellowship that got him to Paris, and the friendship did not survive it.
How many essays are in Notes of a Native Son?
Ten. Most had already appeared in magazines — Harper's, Partisan Review, The New Leader and Commentary — between the mid-1940s and 1955.
What is "Equal in Paris" about?
Eight days Baldwin spent in a French jail over Christmas 1949, after an acquaintance gave him a bedsheet taken from a hotel. The essay's subject is not French racism but French indifference, and the discovery that the machinery which had him would have ground anyone.