Go Tell It on the Mountain
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Paperback · September 12, 2013
James Baldwin’s bestselling first novel—a coming-of-age story that depicts incredible resilience in pursuit of self-invention, now hailed as an American classic “A novel of extraordinary sensitivity and poetry.”—Chicago Tribune Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin’s first major work, based in part on his own childhood in Harlem.
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- Who it’s for
- Baldwin’s lyrical precision meets the unsettled work of discovering who you are.
- Themes
- Identity and self-invention, Spiritual and moral struggle, Resilience
- Genres
- Black Historical Fiction, Coming-of-Age, Literary Fiction
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Start with this bookAbout this book
James Baldwin’s bestselling first novel—a coming-of-age story that depicts incredible resilience in pursuit of self-invention, now hailed as an American classic “A novel of extraordinary sensitivity and poetry.”—Chicago Tribune Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin’s first major work, based in part on his own childhood in Harlem.
Continue reading
With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage born of compassion, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem. Baldwin’s rendering of a young person’s spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understood themselves.
Identity and Belief
Baldwin’s lyrical precision meets the unsettled work of discovering who you are.
Come here for
- A searching coming-of-age story rooted in spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle
- Psychological directness alongside resonant symbolism
Expect
- A layered portrait of identity and self-invention
- Compassionate prose with an edge of anger
Where it sits
| Coming-of-Age | 73% |
|---|---|
| Black Historical Fiction | 49% |
| Literary Fiction | 40% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Literary Fiction
- Family Life
- Black Urban Fiction
- Authors
- James Baldwin
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- September 12, 2013
- Format
- Paperback
- Theme
- Identity and self-invention · Spiritual and moral struggle · Resilience
- Reading lane
- Literary Fiction