As an American expat in France, Baldwin found literary success
with his debut novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, in 1953. But
it was his first nonfiction book, published two years later,
that cemented his reputation as a cultural seer: the essay
collection Notes of a Native Son, which explored race relations,
African-American identity and literature in America and Europe.
The book’s title invoked Richard Wright’s Native Son, and in its
most famous essay, “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” Baldwin skewers
the elder writer’s book, claiming that it put a political agenda
above heart and literary merit. (Baldwin took Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin to task for similar reasons.)
Baldwin’s polemic ended his once friendly relationship with
Wright; Notes of a Native Son endures as his defining work, and
his greatest. Next On Writing