genre: Nonfiction
publisher: Knopf Doubleday
1963
Nothing I say about The Fire Next Time is going to be original or insightful. It’s essential, full stop.
I’m not sure how to write about The Fire Next Time. If you’ve never read this book you should definitely pick it up. James Baldwin‘s writing about race, religion and American society is flawless and timeless. It’s trite to say, but this book could be published today and, with only minor changes, feel fully contemporary.
If (like me) you’ve read Between the World and Me but not The Fire Next Time, you should correct that immediately. The essential book by Ta-Nahisi Coates deliberately echoes James Baldwin’s flawless, timeless masterpiece. I knew that, sort of academically, before I read this (I’m sure that Coates references this book many times throughout his work), but it’s only now that I see how congruent they are.
Here’s from the original NYT review of the book:
…the listener becomes virtually part of the experience, intensely feels the hurt and pain and despair, and yes, even the hope. The listener can be transformed, as far as words will take him, into the skin or the teller. Out of his own pain and despair and hope, Mr. Baldwin has fashioned such a transformation.
He has pictured white America as seen through the eyes of a Negro.
Even though the book is more than 60 years old now, it’s as urgent, eye-opening and relevant as the day it was published. That’s a pretty ugly indictment of today’s political and cultural atmosphere.
Don’t be like me. Read this book as soon as you can.
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