Truly groundbreaking in its treatment of homosexual relationships and the stigma surrounding them in the 1950s, Baldwin's concise masterpiece focuses on David and Hella's separation in Paris and David's subsequent entanglement with the passionate Giovanni.
I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.
Considered an 'audacious' second novel, Giovanni’s Room is set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence. This now-classic story of a fated love triangle explores, with uncompromising clarity, the conflicts between desire, conventional morality and sexual identity.
One of the most important American writers of the twentieth century, James Baldwin’s novels primarily address issues of race, class and sexual inequality, including Giovanni’s Room which was extremely controversial in its representation of gay relationships. His other novels include Go Tell it on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son and Another Country.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780141186351
Number of pages: 176
Weight: 135 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 10 mm
If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one - Michael Ondaatje
Baldwin writes of these matters with unusual candour and yet with such dignity and intensity - The New York Times
Audacious... remarkable... elegant and courageous - Caryl Phillips
Baldwin, in this novel, made clear that he could work wonders with the light and shade of intimacy - Colm Tóibín, The New Yorker
Startling... This is Mr. Baldwin's subject, the rareness and difficulty of love - Granville Hicks
Giovanni's Room is a stunning story of homosexuality, the stigma surrounding LGBTQ romances and a love triangle.
American lovers David and Hella briefly separate in order to find themselves separately in France...
More
What a wonderful yet very powerful read. David is betrothed to Hella, he is an American living in Paris waiting for his lover to join him. A chance meeting at a Paris bar with a young attractive Italian, Giovanni,... More
A bitter tale of treachery, squalor and shattered illusions as an doomed love affair disintegrates; no pride or glamour or rainbow-tinged warm fuzzies in Baldwin’s gay Paris. It’s about the impossibility of two men... More
Please sign in to write a review
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?
