Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone - Penguin Modern Classics
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone - Penguin Modern Classics
paperback
Published:
4 October, 2018
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Description
In this tender, impassioned fourth novel, James Baldwin created one of his most striking characters: a man struggling to become himself.
'Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it'
At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, we see the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the world of the theatre lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. And everywhere there is the anguish of being black in a society that seems poised on the brink of racial war. In this tender, angry 1968 novel, James Baldwin created one of his most striking characters: a man struggling to become himself.
'The emotion surrounding family attachment... is deeply felt and is one reasons he continues to be read with such intensity' Colm Tóibín
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780241342039 |
| ISBN10 | 0241342031 |
| Number Of Pages | 384 |
| Item Weight | 278 g |
| Product Dimensions | 129 x 197 x 24 mm |
| Publisher / Reseller | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Format | paperback |
Media Reviews
Truth-telling, witness bearing, soul stirring writing -- Cornel West
The emotion surrounding family attachment... is deeply felt and is one of the reasons he continues to be read with such intensity -- Colm Tóibín
Timeless . . . a visionary writer * Guardian *
A jazzlike reconfiguration of Baldwin's own life, with existing parts examined and rearranged and new parts added -- Clifford Thompson * LA Review of Books *
One of the few essential novelists of our time * New Statesman *
GoodReads Reviews
Author's Bio
James Baldwin was born in 1924 in New York. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), which evokes his experiences as a boy preacher in Harlem, was an immediate success. Baldwin’s second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956) has become a landmark of gay literature and Another Country (1962) caused a literary sensation. His searing essay collections Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961) contain many of the works that made him an influential figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Baldwin published several other collections of non-fiction, including The Fire Next Time (1963) and No Name in the Street (1972). His short stories are collected in Going to Meet the Man (1965). His later works include the novels Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979).
James Baldwin won a number of literary fellowships: a Eugene F. Saxon Memorial Trust Award, a Rosenwald Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Partisan Review Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant. He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1986. He died in 1987 in France