At other times, he paused after the question excusing himself for not having a ready answer. No official reception awaited him as there had been for the author, Richard Wright, who as a guest of the French government, found himself surrounded by reporters.ĤBaldwin was left alone to create his space, which he admits was one of his reasons for leaving the United States. He arrived in France with no knowledge of the French language and no means of financial support. Placing a cup of tea on the table, he answered some of my questions as rapidly as the passage of the TGV. His powerful speech the day before to an animated overflow crowd starkly contrasted to the intimate setting of that day amid African-American art speaking of elegance and identity.ģOne year after suffering a heart attack, Baldwin looked well.

Richard Long, only slightly dispelled the intimidating presence and barely cast aside a previous warning by thosethat knew of the interview that he might be difficult. Dressed in an almond colored short-sleeved shirt and brown pants, Baldwin’s easy smile as he descended the stairs at the house of his friend, the imminent Dr. Was Baldwin aware of the French response to him and his works? The next day he took the time with this writer to reflect on the French response to his works and other African-American authors living in France.

Two years before his death in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in France, I met James Baldwin, in Atlanta, Georgia, while on a speaking tour. Perhaps I find that with the French, who are my friends, a frankness, a sense of disrespect for things which are necessary for my life” ( Quotidien de Paris).ĢFast forward. There is something in the French character that makes me feel more comfortable than any other place in the world.

Baldwin came to love France and the French: “I can tell you this,” he said twenty-nine years after his arrival in France, “each time I leave France, I understand why I live there. 1By the time I was twenty-four I had decided to stop reviewing books about the Negro problem – which, by this time, was only slightly less horrible in print than it was in life – and I packed my bags and went to France, where I finished, God knows how, Go Tell It on the Mountain.” James Baldwin’s frank declaration in Notes of a Native Son (2) begins a narrative of his adventures, misadventures, and reflections about living in France before he had authored the body of works that would eventually identify him to the French as a great American writer who “honored France with his presence” ( Nouvel Observateur 81).

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