John E. Drabinski is a professor in the Departments of African American and Africana Studies and English at the University of Maryland. His books include Glissant and the Middle Passage: Philosophy, Beginning, Abyss.

“Reading So Unimaginable a Price, I felt I was in the hands of a meticulous and patient guide who shepherded me through difficult questions and complex texts. Drabinski’s scholarship on Black Atlantic theory is a necessary and welcome addition to studies on James Baldwin.” —Mari N. Crabtree, Emerson College “The distinctness of James Baldwin’s essays are to be found in its incandescent audibility. In his essays one can hear Baldwin wrestle with his thoughts; one can see the iridescence of his mind at work. John Drabinski’s So Unimaginable a Price performs a double act of virtuosity. Drabinski brings to us the sound of Baldwin’s unique voice by producing piercing insight into how it is that Baldwin continues to shine the truest light on that difficult human condition that is being a black American.” —Grant Aubrey Farred, Cornell University

• Prefatory Notes Introduction: In Search of Black Life Chapter One: Black Atlantic Origin Stories Chapter Two: The Negative Dialectics of Race Chapter Three: Affect and the Afterlife of Memory Chapter Four: Vernacular as Remnant and Life Chapter Five: The Unimaginable Price of Home Chapter Six: The Racial Double Session Afterword: On the Ethics of Inheritance Acknowledgments Notes

John E. Drabinski is a professor in the Departments of African American and Africana Studies and English at the University of Maryland. His books include Glissant and the Middle Passage: Philosophy, Beginning, Abyss.

“Reading So Unimaginable a Price, I felt I was in the hands of a meticulous and patient guide who shepherded me through difficult questions and complex texts. Drabinski’s scholarship on Black Atlantic theory is a necessary and welcome addition to studies on James Baldwin.” —Mari N. Crabtree, Emerson College “The distinctness of James Baldwin’s essays are to be found in its incandescent audibility. In his essays one can hear Baldwin wrestle with his thoughts; one can see the iridescence of his mind at work. John Drabinski’s So Unimaginable a Price performs a double act of virtuosity. Drabinski brings to us the sound of Baldwin’s unique voice by producing piercing insight into how it is that Baldwin continues to shine the truest light on that difficult human condition that is being a black American.” —Grant Aubrey Farred, Cornell University

• Prefatory Notes Introduction: In Search of Black Life Chapter One: Black Atlantic Origin Stories Chapter Two: The Negative Dialectics of Race Chapter Three: Affect and the Afterlife of Memory Chapter Four: Vernacular as Remnant and Life Chapter Five: The Unimaginable Price of Home Chapter Six: The Racial Double Session Afterword: On the Ethics of Inheritance Acknowledgments Notes