Letter to Jimmy (on the twentieth anniversary of your death)

Description

Written on the twentieth anniversary of James Baldwin's death, Letter to Jimmy is African writer Alain Mabanckou's ode to his literary hero and an effort to place Baldwin's life in context within the greater African diaspora.Beginning with a chance encounter with a beggar wandering along a Santa Monica beach—a man whose ragged clothes and unsteady gait remind the author of a character out of one of James Baldwin's novels— Mabanckou uses his own experiences as an African living in the US as a launching pad to take readers on a fascinating tour of James Baldwin's life. As Mabanckou reads Baldwin.;Foreword: the Santa Monica wanderer; 1. a brave mother, and a father who did not love himself; 2. the Harlem schoolboy and the Bible; 3. in the footsteps of Professor Wright; 4. the desctruction of idols: from Uncle Tom's Cabin to Native Son; 5. black, bastard, gay and a writer; 6. between the black American and the African: misunderstanding; 7. the years of fire; 8. on black anti-Semitism; 9. the ghost of Saint-Paul-de-Vence; 10. on the need to read or reread you today; Afterword: dialogue with Ralph, the invisible man; Postscript: James Baldwin the brother, the father; Endnotes Foreword: the Santa Monica wanderer 1. a brave mother, and a father who did not love himself 2. the Harlem schoolboy and the Bible 3. in the footsteps of Professor Wright 4. the desctruction of idols: from Uncle Tom's Cabin to Native Son 5. black, bastard, gay and a writer 6. between the black American and the African: misunderstanding 7. the years of fire 8. on black anti-Semitism 9. the ghost of Saint-Paul-de-Vence 10. on the need to read or reread you today Afterword: dialogue with Ralph, the invisible man Postscript: James Baldwin the brother, the father Endnotes