![]() ![]() If Americans can mature on the level of racism, then they have to mature on the level of sexuality.”Īnd he has plenty to say about race. But how America dealt with racism was connected to how it dealt with sexuality, in Baldwin’s mind: “The sexual question and the racial question have always been entwined, you know. ![]() ![]() In the eyes of Knopf, his previous book, Go Tell It on the Mountain had focused on “the negro problem” his new novel about white homosexuals, therefore, would ruin his reputation. You don’t need to know much about Baldwin to see how this book wasn’t a great departure. Giovanni’s Room documents the experience of people who have faced prejudice, lived with the shame of being cast out of society, and whose very nature has put them in danger. While posterity has shown just how wrong they were to try to restrict Baldwin’s vision, they were also mistaken – for Baldwin was, in fact, writing about the same things. When Knopf rejected Giovanni’s Room in 1956, the publisher told James Baldwin it was because he wasn’t “writing about the same things and in the same manner as you were before”. ![]()
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