Giovanni's Room

Considered an 'audacious' second novel, GIOVANNI'S ROOM is set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence. This now-classic story of a fated love triangle explores, with uncompromising clarity, the conflicts between desire, conventional morality and sexual identity.

“If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one”

-- Michael Ondaatje
Baldwin writes of these matters with unusual candour and yet with such dignity and intensity The New York Times
Audacious... remarkable... elegant and courageous -- Caryl Phillips
Baldwin, in this novel, made clear that he could work wonders with the light and shade of intimacy -- Colm Tóibín The New Yorker
Startling... This is Mr. Baldwin's subject, the rareness and difficulty of love -- Granville Hicks

Born in Harlem in 1924, Baldwin had an early career as a teenage preacher. He lived in Paris from 1948-1956 and his first novels, the autobiographical GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN and GIOVANNI'S ROOM established him as a promising novelist and anticipated some of the themes of his later works, such as racism and sexuality. He became a prominent spokesperson for racial equality, especially during the civil rights movement. He lived in France during his last years. Baldwin died in 1987.

'Exquisite, a feat of fire-breathing, imaginative daring' Guardian David, a young American in 1950s Paris, is waiting for his fiance to return from vacation in Spain. But when he meets Giovanni, a handsome Italian barman, the two men are drawn into an intense affair. After three months David's fiance returns and, denying his true nature, he rejects Giovanni for a 'safe' future as a married man. His decision eventually brings tragedy. Filled with passion, regret and longing, this story of a fated love triangle has become a landmark of gay writing. James Baldwin caused outrage as a black author writing about white homosexuals, yet for him the issues of race, sexuality and personal freedom were eternally intertwined. 'If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one' Michael Ondaatje 'Baldwin writes of these matters with unusual candour and yet with such dignity and intensity' The New York Times 'Violent, excruciating beauty' San Francisco Chronicle

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