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James Baldwin Today

We are in the midst of a Baldwin renaissance. Director Raoul Peck's 2016 film on Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Academy Award winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins has announced that his next feature film will be an adaptation of Baldwin's novel, If Beale Street Could Talk.

New York City declared 2014 to be “The Year of James Baldwin,” celebrating the 90th anniversary of his birth in Harlem in 1924. Musician Meshell Ndegeocello developed a theatrical interpretation of Baldwin’s classic The Fire Next Time titled “Can I Get a Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin.” A new academic journal, The James Baldwin Review, launched in 2015 and popular publications from Esquire and Vanity Fair to The New Yorker have published essays declaring that Baldwin’s writings matter now more than ever.

From screen and stage to the classroom and the printed page, James Baldwin's work remains a lively and powerful artistic force.