Article

By Colm Tóibín Title: "James Baldwin and Barack Obama" Author comments, "James Baldwin was the grandson of a slave. I was the grandson of a slave owner.... We both were writing about the tangled relations of blacks and whites in America, and whites in America, and because he was wise Jimmy understood the necessity of dealing with the preposterous paradoxes that had dwelled at the heart of the racial tragedy.... I think our common preoccupation helped make us good friends."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21930
r: 10 28 2008. 940pmest.
http://www.nybooks.com/authors/7334
10 31 2008
Author permission to reprint recieved from the author himself 11/2008. lettie