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If Beale Street Could Talk  By  cover art

If Beale Street Could Talk

By: James Baldwin
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
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Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

The inspiration for the film from Oscar award-winning director Barry Jenkins

Harlem in the 1970s: the black soul of New York City. Tish is nineteen and the man she loves - her lifelong friend and the father of her unborn child - has been jailed for a crime he did not commit. As their families come together to fight for his freedom, will their love be enough?

©1974 James Baldwin (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

'If Beale Street Could Talk affirms not only love between a man and a woman, but love of a type that is dealt with only rarely in contemporary fiction - that between members of a family.' (Joyce Carol Oates)

'Soulful... Racial injustice may flatten "the black experience" into one single, fearful, constantly undermined way of life - but black life, black love, is so much larger than that... It's one of the signature lessons of Baldwin's work that blackness contains multitudes.' (Vanity Fair)

'Truth-telling, witness bearing, soul stirring writing.' (Cornel West)

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