Notes of a Native Son - by James Baldwin

Notes of a Native Son is a collection of essays written by James Baldwin during his twenties that capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement.

With a keen eye, Baldwin examines everything from the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of black expatriates.

His criticism on topics such as paternalism of white progressives or his own friend Richard Wright's work is pointed and unabashed.

This book inaugurated Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes erupting in the United States in the twentieth century, and many of his observations have proven almost prophetic.