The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Written a decade after the publication of his famous short story “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin’s book-length personal essay reveals the influences, thinking, and aspirations that went into the short story and into his life work. On the National Mall in Washington, DC, alongside the monument to Martin Luther King, another monument might well stand, one to James Baldwin for all he did and for all he has meant to humankind. “For while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard . . . it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.”