The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin audiobook review – powerful essays from the civil rights frontline

Law & Order’s Jesse L Martin narrates two powerful essays examining the Black experience in the US, the first in a series marking the author’s centenary year

First published in 1963 at the height of the US civil rights movement, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time comprises two astonishing essays examining the Black experience in the United States and the struggle against racial injustice.

The first, My Dungeon Shook, takes the form of a letter to Baldwin’s 14-year-old nephew, and outlines “the root of my dispute with my country … You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.”