The Art of Fiction and the wonderful James Baldwin

Herewith, I offer you one of my favourite short stories of all time. Such writing about the human spirit and about music, about families and race in America ... about love. And the ending! Meet the fiction of the fabulous James Baldwin in his story Sonny's Blues. Worth every second of your time.

Read, here. 

And here ... an interview with James Baldwin in the Paris Review. He lived in Paris for a number of years and wrote his seminal novel Go Tell it On the Mountain there.

Finally, a blogpost at Off the Shelf explores the 'something' about James Baldwin ...

In 1948, James Baldwin left New York and travelled to Paris. He didn’t speak French and arrived with forty dollars to his name. He was twenty-four years old. But being broke or not speaking the native language was of no consequence. In fact, Baldwin was relieved. He needed to leave America. -  more...