Page from draft of “The Novel”

James Baldwin wrote this speech while he was at work on his third novel, Another Country (1962). The speech outlines some of his thoughts on the characteristics of the novel as a form (which he described on the first page as “the most amorphous form of literary endeavor that exists”) and the particular challenges for the American novelist (“so many visions of America and none of them have much to do with what the country really is”). Compelling as these foundational observations are, so too are the indications of Baldwin’s incomplete thoughts, points to which he must return. The final page suggests Baldwin’s view of the promise the novel holds for African American literature when Black writers—such as Richard Wright, Chester Himes, and Ralph Ellison—write how they see themselves: “a new sense of our identity.”