Description

‘This is the work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers’ Edmund White, Washington Post

When Arthur Montana, world-renowned ‘Emperor of Soul’, is found dead in a London pub, his grief-stricken brother looks back over thirty years in the lives of their group of friends: from their childhood spent preaching and singing in Harlem churches, to their struggles with war and poverty, and their encounters with wealth, love and fame.

Set against a vividly drawn background of the civil rights movement of the sixties, Baldwin’s last novel is a monumental saga that ranges from New York to Paris, Korea to Africa to portray how profoundly racial politics can shape life, especially in the private business of love.

‘Warm, melancholy . . . Hall Montana’s voice is the conduit for Baldwin’s most distinctive quality as a writer, his abundant tenderness’ The New York Times

Publisher Review

The best of his work ... stands comparison with any of its period to come out of the United States * The Times * This is the work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers -- Edmund White * Washington Post * If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one -- Michael Ondaatje Baldwin is one of the few genuinely indispensable American writers * Saturday Review *