Notes of a Native Son

Reviews / Votes

Opens with a knock-out punch . . . the command of an audience and the rhetorical flourishes . . . are everywhere in his writing, but particularly in his essays, which contain a mix of registers from an intimate conversational tone to speechifying oratory * The Times * A straight-from-the-shoulder writer, writing about the troubled problems of this troubled earth with an illuminating intensity that should influence for the better all who ponder on the things books say -- Langston Hughes * The New York Times * Powerful . . . I wish I could press this book into the hands of every American - actually, every human. -- Celeste Ng * Guardian * Edgy and provocative . . . entertainingly satirical -- Robert McCrum * Guardian * A classic . . . Take the words out of the 1950s, when they were published, and they could apply to the women in pink hats, the scientists, the Black Lives Matter activists, the climate-change believers and the LGBTQ-rights supporters who have flooded the streets of Washington this year * Washington Post * A classic ... In a divided America, James Baldwin's fiery critiques reverberate anew * Washington Post * Cemented his reputation as a cultural seer ... Notes of a Native Son endures as his defining work, and his greatest * Time *