The Fire Next Time

by James Baldwin Narrated by Jane Santos, Modesto Lacén

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Although written in 1967, it's time we all caught up with James Baldwin and read (or re-read) this book now. Even our best intentions need to be checked, and James Baldwin's words are the way. A voice from the past, needed as much today and even more so than yesterday. Please don't wait for tomorrow.

Una conmovedora e íntima reflexión sobre la naturaleza de la raza y la nación estadounidense que ha inspirado a generaciones de escritores y pensadores, publicada en 1963, el mismo año de la Marcha sobre Washington. Con claridad, convicción y pasión, James Baldwin lanza una terrible advertencia sobre los efectos del racismo que sigue siendo urgente sesenta años después. En el primero de dos ensayos, Tembló mi celda. Carta a mi sobrino en el centésimo aniversario de la emancipación, Baldwin ofrece consejos amables e inquebrantables sobre lo que significa ser negro en Estados Unidos y explica la retorcida lógica del racismo estadounidense. En A los pies de la cruz. Carta desde una región de mi mente, Baldwin relata su viaje espiritual hacia la Iglesia tras una crisis religiosa a los catorce años, y su vuelta a ella, así como su encuentro con Elijah Muhammad, el líder de la Nación del Islam. A lo largo de todo el libro, Baldwin nos insta a enfrentarnos a las instituciones opresoras de la raza, la religión y la propia nación, e insiste en que la resiliencia compartida entre negros y blancos es la única forma de avanzar. En la misma medida en que es un ajuste de cuentas con el pasado racista de Estados Unidos, La próxima vez el fuego es también un toque de clarín a la atención, el valor y el amor.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Speakers or headsets will have to be turned up to listen to Jesse L. Martin's low, slow reading of Baldwin's classic long essay on racism and African-American identity. Martin seeks to be respectful of Baldwin, but he ends up rendering the meaning and the force of his work relatively inert. Pausing in poorly selected places, placing emphasis where little should be placed, Martin does not convey the precision and anger of Baldwin's prose. Instead, Baldwin's book becomes Great Literature, to be intoned and honored, but not truly grasped. Readers with an interest in Baldwin's work will be far better served by reading his prose to themselves than having Martin read it to them. A Vintage paperback.(Apr.)

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From the Publisher

"Basically the finest essay I’ve ever read. . . . Baldwin refused to hold anyone’s hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you." —Ta-Nehisi Coates

"So eloquent in its passion and so scorching in its candor that it is bound to unsettle any reader." —The Atlantic

JULY 2008 - AudioFile

There are few books that evoke the dreams and motivations of the "Age of Aquarius" as clearly as Baldwin's polemic on race and the future. Actor Jesse L. Martin effectively re-creates the tone and tenor of the author's view of America at the beginning of the 1960s. Martin chooses to eschew accents and flowery modulations and sticks to the story of Baldwin's fascinating encounter with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and his own search for spiritual meaning in an America filled with racial strife. Most striking is Baldwin's reference to Robert Kennedy’s prediction that a black man would become the nation’s president sometime in the next forty years. THE FIRE NEXT TIME was published in 1963. R.O. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940192176634
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/01/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged
Language:	Spanish

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