Going To Meet The Man
  • Published: 25 July 1991
  • ISBN: 9780140184495
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $38.00

Going To Meet The Man

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EBook
6 Mar 2014
Paperback
25 Jul 1991
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A haunting collection of short stories by one of the greatest writers of the 20th century

‘There’s no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it.’

The eight stories in this collection showcase the breadth of Baldwin’s imagination, empathy and social critique as he explores the subtle and profound wounds that discrimination leaves in both its victims and its perpetrators: from the down-and-out jazz pianist recovering from addiction in ‘Sonny’s Blues’ to the adolescent who hides his burgeoning sexuality from the church community that defines his world in ‘The Outing’ to the horrifying story of the initiation of a racist, as a deputy sheriff remembers his parents taking him to see the mutilation and murder of a black man by a gleeful mob in 'Going to Meet the Man'.

First published in 1965, these tales of ingenuity, desperation, power and fear provide a snapshot of a writer at the height of his literary powers.
  • Published: 25 July 1991
  • ISBN: 9780140184495
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $38.00
Categories:

Also by James Baldwin

Giovanni's Room
I Am Not Your Negro
The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name ; No Name In The Street; The Devil Finds Work
Encounter on the Seine
No Name in the Street
The James Baldwin Collection
The Harlem Ghetto
See all

Praise for Going To Meet The Man

If Van Gogh was our 19th century artist-saint then James Baldwin is our 20th century one

Michael Ondaatje

Baldwin refused to hold anyone’s hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Praise for James Baldwin

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His prose emits a long piercing scream as it takes off from the page like a fighter jet on a mission to drop a payload of explosive truths across enemy territory, flying fast and low, risking hostile and friendly fire

Colin Grant, Guardian

The stories carry Baldwin’s depth of sympathy . . . Only a reader with a heart of stone will fail to be moved to tears of recognition, sorrow and joy when ['Sonny's Blues'] reaches its conclusion

Guardian

The best of the stories are equal to the novels: try the title story, about the radicalisation of a white boy at a lynching, or the exceptional Sonny’s Blues, where a man copes with his brother’s addiction to heroin

The Times