A new James Baldwin biography explores how his lovers influenced his work
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Who did James Baldwin love and how did those relationships shape his work? Author and scholar Nicholas Boggs set out to answer these questions in a remarkable new biography of the late American writer. Baldwin: A Love Story centers Baldwin's queer relationships alongside his relationships with family and friends in order to better understand the creative process behind classics such as Giovanni's Room and The Fire Next Time.
The book, organized in sections centered around the writer's four great loves, details how Baldwin spent decades wrestling with his own sexuality, racism in the U.S. and abroad and the cost of fame. Through Baldwin's extensive correspondence with friends and lovers and ample research, Boggs writes intimately of Baldwin's interior life as he was drafting his many novels, essays and plays.
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NPR's Michel Martin met with Boggs in Harlem, where Baldwin was born and raised.
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