Colm Tóibín Captures the Universality of James Baldwin

Toibin has an uncanny ability to situate himself as if he is beside Baldwin, raising questions about what Baldwin’s characters will do next, what options they seem to have, what destinies seem foreclosed to them.

Mario Jorrin/Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
James Baldwin in October 1963. Mario Jorrin/Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

‘On James Baldwin’
By Colm Tóibín
Brandeis University Press, 168 pages

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