James Baldwin

American novelist and essayist whose work — Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time — made him the defining literary voice on race, identity, and American democracy in the 20th century.

Wrote with unmatched precision about the psychological damage racism inflicts on both oppressed and oppressor — The Fire Next Time is the most powerful short text on American race ever written — combining prophetic moral authority with novelistic psychological complexity.