If Beale Street could talk - James Baldwin

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

'Achingly beautiful' Guardian


Harlem, the black soul of New York City, in the era of Aretha
Franklin and Ray Charles. The narrator of Baldwin's novel is Tish
nineteen, and pregnant. Her lover Fonny, father of her child, is in jail
accused of rape. Flashbacks from their love affair are woven into the
compelling struggle of two families to win justice for Fonny. To this
love story James Baldwin brings a spare and impassioned intensity,
charging it with universal resonance and power.

'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