heroes + an introduction to James Baldwin

get acquainted with the work of a master in under an hour

Last week I touched on a new hero of mine, Stephen Nedoroscik the pommel horse guy. Nedoroscik is going home from the Olympics with two bronze medals and the love of anyone who saw him wake up, rest his glasses on the chalk bowl and nail his routine to seal a podium place for his USA teammates .

While Nedoroscik reckons the pommel horse guys are ‘the coolest of the gymnastics world. Just getting it out there,’ he’s found himself starstruck, talking about how he was most excited to see his hero, Simone Biles:

I don't think she even really knew my name a month ago, but now the other day she literally was like, "Oh, Steve, Steve, Steve, I took the screenshot of this meme I saw of you." I was like, "Wow, my life is different now."

People can be your hero for all sorts of different reasons and part of the reason I like Nedoroscik is for his range and his contradictions. He’s an electrical engineer and an Olympian, he has extraordinarily bad vision but is an athlete and he’s a massive nerd but also really cool.

This week, for all sorts of reasons but mostly because I love the work, I want to share a short primer on another hero of mine, another man of range and contradictions.

enter baldwin

James Baldwin would have turned 100 on 2nd August 2024 and his work is one of my favourite literary discoveries of the past few years. There’s nothing I can say that can improve on what others have said about him but I admire him for his style, his range, his persistence and his beauty. With Baldwin, it’s not only what he says that will make his work timeless but how he says it.

Like another literary hero of mine in Zadie Smith, Baldwin wrote all kinds of things, able to turn his hand to all sorts of genres and forms, and also like Smith, it’s as much a pleasure to listen to him speak as it is to read his writing.

Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

Below I’ll share a few entry points into Baldwin’s body of work. This is by no means a comprehensive list given I’ve not made a huge dent in his discography but it’s instead a selected series of jumping off points, shorter pieces that will give you a taste of the breadth and beauty of his mind.

I like the idea of these introductory recommendations and if you do too, I’ll do more of them. I wanted to make getting to grips with Baldwin as accessible as possible so aside from the novel recommendation, you could take down all of the recommendations in under an hour.

So if you do have an hour to spare, spend it getting acquainted with someone whose work will last forever.