The mystery of what they think, what they feel, what they want, and what they suppose themselves to be saying.

Baldwin’s epigraph for Another Country, his bestselling novel from 1962, is a quotation from one of his great models, Henry James. Both writers—opposites in class origin and disposition—fixated on America, on manners, on friendship, and, perhaps most importantly, on narrative voice as the true locus of the art of fiction. In this talk, Cunningham discusses Another Country with a special focus on the book’s narration—its grieving, furious, restless voice—and how it can be understood (fittingly for the child preacher Baldwin) as an extended oratorical performance.

Presenter

Vinson Cunningham’s début novel, Great Expectations, came out in 2024. A critic for The New Yorker since 2016, covering theater, TV, and more, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for in 2024 and was awarded the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for 2021-2022. He teaches at the Yale School of Art and Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and he is a co-host of Critics at Large, The New Yorker’s weekly podcast about culture and the arts.

Few American writers have marked their era as powerfully as James Baldwin. As distinctive on the page as on the airwaves, his voice is indelibly associated with the demand for racial justice in the United States, a demand that continues to make him one of our most pressing and urgent contemporaries.

To mark Baldwin’s centenary, the Authors Guild Foundation invites you to join a conversation featuring some of our most exciting writers, scholars, and essayists as we gather to celebrate, study, and reflect on the legacy of Baldwin’s life and work.

The painting of James Baldwin in the graphic above is by Beauford Delaney and reprinted courtesy of the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery.

Beauford Delaney (1901–1979), James Baldwin, c.1945–50, oil on canvasboard, 24 x 18 inches / 61 x 45.7 cm, estate stamp; Private Collection; © Estate of Beauford Delaney, by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator, Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY