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Cover of If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

If Beale Street Could Talk

  • 208 pages · about 3 hours
  • First published 1974
  • 44 editions

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1 About this book

Like the blues -- sweet, sad and full of truth -- this masterly work of fiction rocks us with powerful emotions. In it are anger and pain, but above all, love -- affirmative love of a woman for her man, the sustaining love of a black family.

Fonny, a talented young artist, finds himself unjustly arrested and locked in New York's infamous tombs. But his girlfriend, Tish, is determined to free him, and to have his baby, in this starkly realisitic tale... a powerful endictment of American concepts of justice and punishment in our time.

  • Romance
  • Relationships
  • American fiction
  • Prisons
  • African American men
  • Justice
  • New york
  • African Americans

2 About James Baldwin

1924–1987

James Arthur Baldwin (né Jones; August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain has been ranked by Time magazine as one of the top 100 English-language novels. His 1955 essay collection Notes of a Native Son helped establish his reputation as a voice for human equality.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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