University Library, UW-Stevens Point
Library Home | About Us | Hours | Directory | Library News | Visitors & Maps | Site Index | Help

Search This Blog

Labels

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Book of the Week (August 8, 2011)

On the New book shelf in the Library's lobby
Call number:  PS 3552.A45 C76 2010

The Cross of Redemption: uncollected writings
By James Baldwin

Publisher's DescriptionThe Cross of Redemption is a revelation by an American literary master: a gathering of essays, articles, polemics, reviews, and interviews that have never before appeared in book form.
James Baldwin was one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the past century, renowned for his fierce engagement with issues haunting our common history. In The Cross of Redemption we have Baldwin discoursing on, among other subjects, the possibility of an African-American president and what it might mean; the hypocrisy of American religious fundamentalism; the black church in America; the trials and tribulations of black nationalism; anti-Semitism; the blues and boxing; Russian literary masters; and the role of the writer in our society.

Prophetic and bracing, The Cross of Redemption is a welcome and important addition to the works of a cosmopolitan and canonical American writer who still has much to teach us about race, democracy, and personal and national identity. As Michael Ondaatje has remarked, “If van Gogh was our nineteenth-century artist-saint, Baldwin [was] our twentieth-century one.”

Review from the New York Times

No comments: