James Baldwin at 100: in praise of a writer who speaks to our times

In a week of literary highs and lows, we paid tribute to the great Irish novelist Edna O’Brien, who died aged 93, and covered a Booker longlist that our chief books writer Lisa Allardice thinks might be the most enjoyable of recent years.

Friday also marked the centenary of the writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin: more on that after this week’s highlights. And scroll down for reading picks by the British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, who was interviewed by Claire Armitstead for the Saturday magazine.

One hundred years ago, on 2 August, the man who would go on to be one of America’s most important writers and civil rights activists was born in Harlem hospital in New York. In this landmark year, tributes have included everything from reissues of the author’s work to Baldwin-themed jazz concerts.

Tom Jenks, author of a new book about Baldwin’s short story Sonny’s Blues, thinks the author’s enduring appeal is “because of the depth of his understanding, his sympathy, and the lyric perfection of his art”. He “possessed a totality of gifts, as a writer and a man, and he bestowed his gifts – not least of all his love – for the sake of humankind,” Jenks writes.

“I think Baldwin is the essential voice when it comes to history and the struggles we’re having around history at the moment,” historian David Olusoga told the Hay festival audience during an event celebrating this centenary year in May (and still available to watch online via the festival’s Hay Festival Anytime feature). “What Baldwin railed against most was white America’s determination to brutally defend its own innocence.”

The Library of America’s box set edition of Baldwin’s work, edited by Toni Morrison and Darryl Pinckney, is “still a delight to read”, novelist Colm Tóibín said during the Hay event. Baldwin’s essays, though he is writing about the civil rights movement of the past, don’t feel dated, “because it’s a mind at work with a glittering tone in his possession”, Tóibín added.

“He is in some ways ‘clippable’, as we’d say now,” Olusoga said. In Baldwin’s appearances on chatshows, which can be found online, “he’s put in positions where he’s asked the sort of questions that Black people feel crushed by: ‘Prove to me race is a problem.’ ‘Why are you always talking about race?’ And he says what you wish you would say under that pressure. He says it beautifully and searingly.”

Olusoga thinks “one of the reasons why Baldwin is having this second life, one of the reasons his words were graffitied on buildings in 2020 during Black Lives Matter, is because he is perfectly suited not just for his age, but for the YouTube age.”

Through his words Baldwin lives on, and there is so much we can still learn and enjoy in what he has left us. So if you’re looking to read or reread his best work, Jenks has put together a Where to start with guide for Guardian readers.

I enjoyed reading Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History, which brilliantly focuses on the lives of “ordinary” women who have been left out of history. From female soldiers to the makers of the Bayeux tapestry to highwaywomen, it is a fascinating book defying patriarchal amnesia.

Another compelling read was Burn Book: A Tech Love Story by Kara Swisher. Weaving the personal and the political seamlessly, Swisher focuses on the rise of social media platforms, tech titans and the invisible walls inside Silicon Valley.

I have just finished reading a proof copy of Hanif Kureishi’s memoir of the accident that left him paralysed, Shattered, out in October. It is a powerful, brave and deeply moving book that will urge every reader to rethink, re-feel and reconnect with life and love.

Lastly, I would highly recommend You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited and introduced by US poet laureate Ada Limón. It is both timely and timeless. As she says in the beginning. “Nature is not a place we visit. Nature is who we are.”