Giovanni's Room
(Author) James BaldwinSet among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris, this groundbreaking novel about love and the fear of love is "a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction" (The Atlantic). • With an Introduction by Colm Tóibín, New York Times bestselling author of The Master. David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy. Caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality, David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With sharp, probing insight, Giovanni's Room tells an impassioned, deeply moving story that lays bare the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
James Baldwin
James Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, and playwright known for his exploration of race, sexuality, and identity in America. His most notable works include "Go Tell It on the Mountain," "The Fire Next Time," and "If Beale Street Could Talk." Baldwin's writing style was characterized by his powerful and eloquent prose, which delved deeply into the complexities of the human experience. He was a prominent voice in the civil rights movement and his works continue to be celebrated for their insight and impact on American literature. His most famous work, "The Fire Next Time," is a seminal text on race in America and remains a classic of 20th-century literature. Baldwin's contributions to literature have had a lasting influence on the genre of African American literature and continue to be studied and revered by readers and scholars alike.