The Life, Writing & Legacy of James Baldwin

Celebrations of the centenary of writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin have continued at the Cambridge Literary Festival. Erica Wagner chaired a panel focusing on works such as No Name in the Street and Giovanni’s Room exploring Baldwin’s life and writing. In the course of a productive and shining career, Baldwin explored masculinity, race, class in both his fiction and nonfiction work. He’s never really gone away and remarkably his work seems contemporary and prescient. Writer Jason Okundaye (Revolutionary Acts), Colin Grant, director of the WritersMosaic, and broadcaster and critic Alex Clark joined Erica Wagner to reflect on Baldwin’s writer’s voice and legacy, and to consider why his work still seems so relevant today.