“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition”: At Home in the Life and Work of James Baldwin

Abstract

He said, “I pray I have done my work so, that when I have gone from here—and all turmoil, through the wreckage and rumble, and through whatever—when someone nds themselves digging through the ruins.” He said, “I pray, that somewhere in that wreckage they’ll nd me; that somewhere in that wreckage that they can use something that I le behind. And if I’ve done that, then I’ve accomplished something in life.”1