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Imprint: Chatto & Windus
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Published: 14/01/2021
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ISBN: 9781784744335
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Length: 272 Pages
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Dimensions: 222mm x 27mm x 144mm
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Weight: 392g
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RRP: £16.99
Begin Again
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James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today
A searing indictment of racial injustice in America - inspired by the life and work of James Baldwin - to help us understand the present moment, and imagine a new future into being
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
**Shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2021**
The struggles of Black Lives Matter and the attempt to achieve a new America have been challenged by the presidency of Donald Trump, a president whose time in the White House represents the latest failure of America to face the lies it tells itself about race.
For James Baldwin, a similar attempt to force a confrontation with the truth of America's racism came in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, and was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the years from the publication of The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name in the Street in 1972, Baldwin - the great creative artist, often referred to as 'the poet of the revolution' - became a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from that journey, Baldwin emerged with a sense of renewed purpose about the necessity of pushing forward in the face of disillusionment and despair.
America is at a crossroads. Drawing insight and inspiration from Baldwin's writings, Glaude suggests we can find hope and guidance through our own era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Seamlessly combining biography with history, memoir and trenchant analysis of our moment, Begin Again bears witness to the difficult truth of race in America. It is at once a searing exploration that lays bare the tangled web of race, trauma and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a more just future.
'A simply wonderful book' PHILIPPE SANDS
'Begin Again is that rare thing: an instant classic' PANKAJ MISHRA
'Incredibly moving and stirring' DIANA EVANS
Winner of the Stowe Prize 2021
A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2020
A Washington Post Notable Work of Non-Fiction 2020
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Imprint: Chatto & Windus
-
Published: 14/01/2021
-
ISBN: 9781784744335
-
Length: 272 Pages
-
Dimensions: 222mm x 27mm x 144mm
-
Weight: 392g
-
RRP: £16.99
Reviews
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I loved Eddie Glaude's Begin Again. James Baldwin is a man for our moment: in a time of Black Lives Matter we've come to think about our past, our colonial history, enslavement, matters of race and identity. The beauty of this book is not just that it's deeply personal, but that it's also extraordinarily scholarly . . . You're left with an understanding of the extraordinary modernity, relevance and the immense power of James Baldwin. It's a simply wonderful book
Philippe Sands
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Begin Again is an essayistic marvel, circling and folding back on itself as Baldwin's musings in the past and Glaude's analysis of the present give meaning to each other . . . a scholarly, deeply personal, and yet immensely readable meditation, a masterful reckoning with the "latest betrayal" of the American ideal
Sara Collins, Guardian
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Timely, powerful . . . Glaude invites us with him to "read Baldwin to the end" and reveals a writer, not spent, but rather illuminating the path beyond despair - the work of a saint if ever there was such a thing
Ashish Ghadiali, Observer
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A call to confront the truth and legacies of the traumatic birth of America . . . urgent . . . original
Sujit Sivasundaram, History Today, Books of the Year
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Begin Again is that rare thing: an instant classic
Pankaj Mishra, author of The Age of Anger
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An unparalleled masterpiece of social criticism. Glaude thinks alongside America's finest essayist, matching the master's firepower, brilliance, courage, and sensitivity at every turn . . . breathtaking
Imani Perry, author of Breathe and Looking for Lorraine
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Incredibly moving and stirring. Begin Again. . . underlines just how relevant and crucial Baldwin's work has always been and always will be
Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People
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A powerful indictment of racial injustice in the US written in conversation with the writings of James Baldwin . . . whose wisdom should be part of our conversations today
New Statesman
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Begin Again speaks to a global Black Lives Matter movement . . . A riveting read
Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance
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The magic of Begin Again is that it allows us to ponder Baldwin both in his perilous era and in our own. Remarkable, and remarkably relevant
Tracy K. Smith, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning Life on Mars
