James Baldwin Reading from Another Country: From Great American Authors Read from Their Works, Volume 1

New York's Greenwich Village in the 1950s, the gathering place of artists, writers, and musicians, is the setting of Another Country, Baldwin's third novel. The characters, all involved in complex interracial relationships, cluster around Rufus, a jazz musician whose suicide affects them profoundly. For Baldwin, Rufus represents "the black corpse floating in the national psyche." Baldwin's first reading on this recording portrays Rufus' state of mind in his final moments.

Baldwin's second re...