James Baldwin (1924-1987) was born in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance. He remained in the United States until 1948, when he moved to Europe at age 24. By the time he published “Stranger in the Village” in 1953, Baldwin had established his name in several genres: the novel, the short story, and the essay.

In Europe, specifically France, Baldwin found a freedom that enabled his writing. From this distance, he could write about his experience as a queer Black American man. Many of his fictional works, novels and short stories alike, are situated in the US and centered around race and gender; his essays frequently address gender and race too. Baldwin suggested that he was the right person to critique white American masculinity because of how he was situated in relation to it as a Black American man. From his vantage, he could see what white American men could not. His work also discusses the near impossibility of having the conversation he nevertheless insists we must have as Americans. On one hand, white people cannot confess their need for Black people without sacrificing the fantastical position they think they hold as white people; on the other hand, Black people cannot address their history without including a damning accusation about white people.