All Those Strangers

Rona Cran, Times Literary Supplement a compellingly unorthodox biography ... [Field] carefully demonstrates that Baldwins work requires a critical approach that does not demand its segmentation.

Dwight A. McBride, editor of James Baldwin Now All Those Strangers traverses the many paths of James Baldwins journeys, from his political development with the New York left, through his transatlantic exiles and his conflicts with the FBI and Black Nationalism, to his struggles with religion and unbending faith in the power of love. Field is an able and astute guide, and along the route provides fresh insights for the continued appreciation of Baldwin's relevance and genius.

Gary Holcomb, author of Claude McKay, Code Name Sasha: Queer Black Marxism and the Harlem Renaissance No book before has ever brought together the paradoxical parts of Baldwin's queer black leftism, simultaneously acknowledging Baldwin's at times ambivalence, sometimes self-denial about such a conceptualization of his thought and writing. Combining literary analysis with cultural inquiry, Field makes complex issues come into focus, while demonstrating a deft awareness of the on-going study and revaluation of Baldwin's entire writing life.

Brian Norman, author of Dead Women Talking: Figures of Injustice in American Literature This is a definitive portrait of a famously complex writer. Field delivers a masterful synthesis of key concerns in Baldwin's major works, along with meticulous original research into lesser-known aspects of Baldwins life and career. He demonstrates beautifully how Baldwin can help us understand pivotal issues of the later twentieth century, from dissent and Cold War surveillance, to religion and secularism, to identity politics arising from American social movements, and what it means to be a voice simultaneously global and American in a self-consciously transnational age.

Douglas Field is Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Manchester. He is the editor of American Cold War Culture and A Historical Guide to James Baldwin.

Introduction ; Chapter 1 ; Baldwin's Life on the Left: from New York Intellectual to Disturber of the Peace ; Chapter 2 ; Radical Baldwin and the FBI: From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Power ; Chapter 3 ; James Baldwin's Religion: Sex, Love and Blues ; Chapter 4 ; "I am a Stranger Everywhere:" Travel and Transnational Tensions in Baldwin's Work ; Afterword ; Works Cited ; Index