The Fire Next Time

James Baldwin, Steve Schapiro

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Hardback

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English

Taschen
28 April 2019

Photographic reportage; Biography; Black & Asian studies; Civil rights & citizenship

First published in 1963, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time stabbed at the heart of America’s so-called “Negro problem.” As remarkable for its masterful prose as for its frank and personal account of the black experience in the United States, it is considered one of the most passionate and influential explorations of 1960s race relations, weaving thematic threads of love, faith and family into a candid assault on the hypocrisy of the “land of the free.”

Now Baldwin’s rich, raw and ever-relevant prose is reprinted with more than 100 photographs taken by Steve Schapiro, who travelled the American South with Baldwin for Life magazine. The encounter thrust Schapiro into the thick of the movement, allowing for vital, often iconic, images both of civil rights leaders — including Dr Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Fred Shuttlesworth and Jerome Smith — and such landmark events as the March on Washington and the Selma march.

Rounding out the edition are:

- Schapiro’s stories from the field

- an original introduction by civil rights legend and US Congressman John Lewis

- photo captions by Marcia Davis of The Marshall Project

- an essay by Gloria Baldwin Karefa-Smart, who was with her brother James Baldwin in Sierra Leone when he started work on the original story.

The result is a remarkable visual and textual record of one of the most important and enduring struggles of the American experience. First published as a TASCHEN Collector’s Edition, now available in a popular edition.

By: James Baldwin
Photographs by: Steve Schapiro
Imprint: Taschen
Country of Publication: Germany
Dimensions: Height: 333mm, Width: 236mm,
Weight: 2.095kg
ISBN: 9783836571517
ISBN 10: 383657151X
Pages: 276
Publication Date: 28 April 2019
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

James Baldwin (1924-1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic, and one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the postwar era. His nonfiction collections, most notably Notes of a Native Son (1955) and The Fire Next Time (1963), and novels, including Giovanni's Room (1956) and Another Country (1962), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in mid-20th-century America. A Harlem, New York, native, he primarily made his home in the south of France. American photojournalist Steve Schapiro has documented six decades of American culture, from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy to Andy Warhol's Factory and the filming of The Godfather trilogy. He has published a dozen books of his photographs, has exhibited his work in shows from Los Angeles to Moscow, and is represented in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, among others.

Reviews for The Fire Next Time

Schapiro and Baldwin showed the possibility of what strong writing and photography could achieve in their time. In ours, we'd do well to look to them. * The Guardian * So eloquent in its passion and so scorching in its candor that it is bound to unsettle any reader. * The Atlantic * Now we not only feel the pain of Baldwin's eloquent words, but see it via Steve Schapiro's stark, poetic photographs. * LA Weekly * Bringing together two of the most vibrant documenters of their times, the book is a testimony to both an era and two icons. * hungertv.com *