Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Fried, Ben

Titel

James Baldwin’s Readers: White Innocence and the Reception of “Letter from a Region in My Mind”

Ist Teil von

• African American review, 2022-03, Vol.55 (1), p.69-85

Ort / Verlag

Saint Louis: Johns Hopkins University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Quelle

Literature Online (LION)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In 1962, James Baldwin became the second Black contributor to The New Yorker, appearing at a crossroads in his career and the magazine’s history. This article reconstructs the editorial development and critical afterlife of “Letter from a Region in My Mind,” arguing that the essay’s reception by white readers is already present in its gestation. A conversion tale, “Letter” attempts to extricate its audience from the American tradition of willful white innocence. Baldwin’s readers, from William Shawn to the author’s recent revival, set in motion the essay’s machinery of reciprocal reflection—its chiasmus of style and substance—with imperfect but enduring results.