Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today
EDDIE S. GLAUDE Jr
(Chatto & windus, 272 PP, £16.99)
Tablet bookshop price £15.29 • tel 020 7799 4064

This book, by Princeton professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr, is powerful but awkward. Originally conceived of as an intellectual biography of the African American writer James Baldwin, it offers little in the way of biography and has virtually ­nothing to say about the work for which Baldwin is most famous – his novels. It examines instead Baldwin’s voluminous non-fiction writings on the topic that always haunted, sometimes confounded and repeatedly inspired him – the racial politics of America. Spurred by recent events, it also supplies a wider and more contemporary lens than Baldwin’s work alone can provide, for Glaude is keen to provide his own take on the state of racial issues and relations in today’s America.