If Beale Street Could Talk

In this honest and stunning novel, now a major motion picture directed by Barry Jenkins, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice.

Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin’s story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions–affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.

• I Am Not Your Negro
• The Fire Next Time
• Go Tell It on the Mountain (Vintage International)
• The Ways of White Folks: Stories (Vintage Classics)
• Go Tell It on the Mountain (Vintage International)
• Giovanni's Room
• Notes of a Native Son
• Go Tell It on the Mountain (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series)
• James Baldwin : Collected Essays : Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds Work / Other Essays (Library of America)
• Going to Meet the Man: Stories