James Baldwin’s mid-century masterpiece, Giovanni’s Room
- Written by Dan Dixon, Adjunct Lecturer, University of Sydney
Our cultural touchstones series looks at influential books.
Despite publishing James Baldwin’s first novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain, publishing house Alfred A. Knopf rejected his second. Upon receiving the manuscript of Giovanni’s Room in 1955, editor Henry Carlisle pronounced it a failure, telling Baldwin the novel, if published,...





