Overview

In the first major biography of Baldwin in more than a decade, Bill V. Mullen celebrates the personal and political life of the great African-American writer who changed the face of Western politics and culture. As a lifelong anti-imperialist, black queer advocate, and feminist, Baldwin (1924-1987) was a passionate chronicler of the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, the U.S. war against Vietnam, Palestinian liberation struggle, and the rise of LGBTQ rights. Mullen explores how Baldwin's life and work channel the long history of African-American freedom struggles, and explains how Baldwin both predicted and has become a symbol of the global Black Lives Matter movement.

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Reviews

'James Baldwin: Living in Fire' is a truly fresh, exciting, comprehensive biography that richly appreciates Baldwin's profound relevance both historically and in this moment. -- Michele Elam, William Robertson Coe Professor, Stanford University, editor of 'The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin' (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

Finally, Bill V. Mullen presents the James Baldwin we've been waiting for: the revolutionary, fierce internationalist, queer theorist, anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, incisive dialectician, and perhaps the most dangerous thinker of the 20th century. If you want to know the real Baldwin, the uncompromising critic and visionary realist possessed of Fanonian optimism, Gramscian pessimism, and Lordean love, this is the book to read, the book we desperately need. -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of 'Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original' (Free Press, 2008) Bill Mullen's biography of James Baldwin offers us a truly internationalist and radical reading of an author whose work is only today being fully appreciated for its ability to place America within its empire, and the black struggle at the fore of a global imperative to remake our societies. We need this urgent biography and we should be grateful Mullen's has delivered it. How politically transformative can love be? James Baldwin loved black people, and he offered this love amid the violence and hate and massive expropriation of black life as a demonstration under duress of what might be possible for all of us. It takes a radical sensibility like Bill Mullen's to draw out for us the revolutionary potential of such a love promised by Baldwin, but held in abeyance until we deserve to feel its wealth. This biography is a step on that road to radical love as a way of life. -- Stefano Harney, author with Fred Moten of 'The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study' (2013, Minor Compositions) and 'All Incomplete' (forthcoming, Minor Compositions). 'An admirably tempered appraisal, in clear and sturdy prose, that will vivify for a new generation the strength and moral clarity of Baldwin and his writing' -- Alan Wald, author of 'The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s' (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1987) 'An incisive, timely exposition of Baldwin's political and intellectual evolution. The historically grounded account of Baldwin's critical synthesis of the major strains of black radicalism that we have long needed' -- James Smethurst, Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, author of 'The African American Roots of Modernism: Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance' (University of North Carolina Press, 2011); 'The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s' (University of North Carolina Press, 2005); and 'The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946' (Oxford University Press, 1999). 'A truly fresh, exciting, comprehensive biography that richly appreciates Baldwin's profound relevance both historically and in this moment' -- Michele Elam, William Robertson Coe Professor, Stanford University, editor of 'The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin' (Cambridge University Press, 2015); author of 'Race, Work and Desire in American Literature 1860-1930' (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

'James Baldwin: Living in Fire' is one of the most important publishing events of this political age. Lucidly and compellingly written, it updates and recontextualizes our knowledge of the complex, humane brilliance of Baldwin. It draws out Baldwin's importance not only for the ages, but most urgently for our present day. It is a book that angers, moves, and inspires. An indispensable weapon for any activist fighting today's ranging fires.' -- David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University; author of 'The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age' (Duke University Press, 2012) Finally, Bill V. Mullen presents the James Baldwin we've been waiting for: the revolutionary, fierce internationalist, queer theorist, anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, incisive dialectician, and perhaps the most dangerous thinker of the 20th century. If you want to know the real Baldwin, the uncompromising critic and visionary realist possessed of Fanonian optimism, Gramscian pessimism, and Lordean love, this is the book to read, the book we desperately need. -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of 'Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original' (Free Press, 2008) Bill Mullen's biography of James Baldwin offers us a truly internationalist and radical reading of an author whose work is only today being fully appreciated for its ability to place America within its empire, and the black struggle at the fore of a global imperative to remake our societies. We need this urgent biography and we should be grateful Mullen's has delivered it. How politically transformative can love be? James Baldwin loved black people, and he offered this love amid the violence and hate and massive expropriation of black life as a demonstration under duress of what might be possible for all of us. It takes a radical sensibility like Bill Mullen's to draw out for us the revolutionary potential of such a love promised by Baldwin, but held in abeyance until we deserve to feel its wealth. This biography is a step on that road to radical love as a way of life. -- Stefano Harney, author with Fred Moten of 'The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study' (2013, Minor Compositions) and 'All Incomplete' (forthcoming, Minor Compositions). 'An admirably tempered appraisal, in clear and sturdy prose, that will vivify for a new generation the strength and moral clarity of Baldwin and his writing' -- Alan Wald, author of 'The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s' (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1987) 'An incisive, timely exposition of Baldwin's political and intellectual evolution. The historically grounded account of Baldwin's critical synthesis of the major strains of black radicalism that we have long needed' -- James Smethurst, Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, author of 'The African American Roots of Modernism: Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance' (University of North Carolina Press, 2011); 'The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s' (University of North Carolina Press, 2005); and 'The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946' (Oxford University Press, 1999). 'A truly fresh, exciting, comprehensive biography that richly appreciates Baldwin's profound relevance both historically and in this moment' -- Michele Elam, William Robertson Coe Professor, Stanford University, editor of 'The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin' (Cambridge University Press, 2015); author of 'Race, Work and Desire in American Literature 1860-1930' (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

'An incisive, timely exposition of Baldwin's political and intellectual evolution... The historically grounded account of Baldwin's critical synthesis of the major strains of black radicalism that we have long needed.' -- James Smethurst, Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, author of 'The African American Roots of Modernism: Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance' (University of North Carolina Press, 2011); 'The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s' (University of North Carolina Press, 2005); and 'The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946' (Oxford University Press, 1999). 'A truly fresh, exciting, comprehensive biography that richly appreciates Baldwin's profound relevance both historically and in this moment'. -- Michele Elam, William Robertson Coe Professor, Stanford University, editor of 'The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin' (Cambridge University Press, 2015); author of 'Race, Work and Desire in American Literature 1860-1930' (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Mullen's book is an incisive, timely exposition of Baldwin's political and intellectual evolution. It is the historically grounded account of Baldwin's critical synthesis of the major strains of black political and culture radicalism that we have long needed. -- James Smethurst, Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, author of 'The African American Roots of Modernism: Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance' (University of North Carolina Press, 2011); 'The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s' (University of North Carolina Press, 2005); and 'The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946' (Oxford University Press, 1999). 'James Baldwin: Living in Fire' is a truly fresh, exciting, comprehensive biography that richly appreciates Baldwin's profound relevance both historically and in this moment. -- Michele Elam, William Robertson Coe Professor, Stanford University, editor of 'The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin' (Cambridge University Press, 2015); author of 'Race, Work and Desire in American Literature 1860-1930' (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Author Information

Bill V. Mullen is Professor of American Studies at Purdue University. He is the author of James Baldwin: Living in Fire and UnAmerican: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Century of World Revolution, amongst other books.

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