James Baldwin

The prophet America refused to hear finally falls silent-but his warnings echo louder than ever.

By 1968, James Baldwin had become the most dangerous voice in America-not because he preached violence, but because he told truths the nation couldn't bear to hear. When Martin Luther King Jr. fell to an assassin's bullet, something in Baldwin broke. The dream had died, and with it, his hope that America might finally face itself.

Prophet Without Honor chronicles Baldwin's final two decades: his retreat to a hillside house in southern France, the brilliant late novels and essays that critics dismissed, the teaching positions that sustained him, and the physical decline that mirrored America's moral collapse. As Reagan's America turned its back on civil rights progress, Baldwin watched from exile, chronicling betrayals and warning of consequences.

But this is also the story of resilience-of an artist who continued writing masterpieces even as the literary establishment moved on, of a prophet who kept faith with truth even when truth-telling brought only marginalization and pain.

From If Beale Street Could Talk to The Evidence of Things Not Seen, from university lecture halls to his final hospital bed, Baldwin never stopped bearing witness.

Now, decades after his death, America is finally ready to listen.

Volume 4 of the definitive four-volume biography of America's greatest prophetic voice.