Everyones life begins on a level where races, armies, and churches stop. And yet everyones life is always shaped by races, churches, and armies . In these eight extraordinary stories of love, conflict, desperation and fear, James Baldwin shows people trapped by the roles they must play in society, and those who try and escape them.

James Baldwin (1924 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1955 essay collection Notes of a Native Son helped establish his reputation as a voice for human equality. Baldwin was an influential public figure and orator, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States.

Baldwin's fiction posed fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures. Themes of masculinity, sexuality, race, and class intertwine to create intricate narratives that influenced both the civil rights movement and the gay liberation movement in mid-twentieth century America. Baldwin's protagonists are often, but not exclusively African American; gay and bisexual men feature prominently in his work (as in his 1956 novel Giovanni's Room). His characters typically face internal and external obstacles in their search for self- and social acceptance.