Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.

The author

James Baldwin was born in 1924 and died in 1987. Among his more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction are Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, and The Fire Next Time.