James Baldwin: The Life Album

An intimate portrait of James Baldwin, offering a new understanding of his life and works as seen through his close relationships and private life
  
Magdalena J. Zaborowska draws on Baldwin’s archives and material legacy—from his unpublished papers to his books to his house in France—to offer a fresh look at the writer’s understated and obscured private life. Taking a cue from Baldwin’s own love of the blues, Zaborowska presents his biography as a series of tracks on a vinyl record, introducing, developing, and remixing the themes and relationships from his life. She recounts episodes from Baldwin’s troubled childhood, his struggles with sexuality and gender, his intimate relationships, and the overlooked influence of women, Jews, and queers on his writing. This Life Album revolves around Baldwin’s development of a unique worldview, “Black queer humanism,” premised on African diaspora aesthetics, resilience, joy, community, internationalism, activism, and justice.

W. W. Norton, 2025. Hardcover, 288 pages 8.5 in x 5.5 in