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James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an African American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His essays, as collected in ''Notes of a Native Son'' (1955), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century America, and their inevitable if unnameable tensions.〔Public Broadcasting Service. ("James Baldwin: About the author" ). ''American Masters''. November 29, 2006. 〕 Some Baldwin essays are book-length, for instance ''The Fire Next Time'' (1963), ''No Name in the Street'' (1972), and ''The Devil Finds Work'' (1976). Baldwin's novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures thwarting the equitable integration of not only blacks, but also of gay and bisexual men, while depicting some internalized obstacles to such individuals' quests for acceptance. Such dynamics are prominent in Baldwin's second novel, written well before gay equality was widely espoused in America: ''Giovanni's Room'' (1956).〔 p. 158, pp. 148–200.〕 Baldwin's first novel, ''Go Tell It on the Mountain'', is said to be his best-known work. ==Early life== When Baldwin was an infant, his mother, Emma Berdis Jones, divorced his father amid his drug abuse and moved to the Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. There, she married a preacher, David Baldwin. The family was very poor. James spent much time caring for his several younger brothers and sisters. At the age of ten, he was beaten by a gang of police officers. His adoptive father, whom James in essays called simply his father, appears to have treated James—versus James's siblings—with singular harshness. His stepfather died of tuberculosis in summer of 1943 soon before James turned 19. The day of the funeral was James's 19th birthday, the day his father's last child was born, and the day of the Harlem Riot of 1943, which was the portrait opening his essay "Notes of a Native Son".〔Baldwin J, (''Notes of a Native Son'' ).〕 The quest to answer or explain familial and social repudiation—and attain a sense of self, both coherent and benevolent—became a motif in Baldwin's writing. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Baldwin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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