Walking in the dark: James Baldwin, my father, and me

A moving exploration of the life and work of the celebrated American writer, blending biography and memoir with literary criticism.

Since James Baldwin’s death in 1987, his writing – including The Fire Next Time, one of the manifestos of the Civil Rights Movement, and Giovanni’s Room, a pioneering work of gay fiction – has only grown in relevance.

Douglas Field was introduced to Baldwin’s essays and novels by his father, who witnessed the writer’s debate with William F. Buckley at Cambridge...