Sonny's Blues | Literary Criticism & Book Review

Sonny's Blues Critical Overview

Though Baldwin published "Sonny's Blues" as part of his only story collection, Going to Meet the Man, in 1965, the story had appeared in a periodical several years before. While stories in periodicals are generally not reviewed, the magazine in which "Sonny's Blues" appeared does give some indication of Baldwin's place in the literary world at that time. "Sonny's Blues" led off the summer, 1957, issue of Partisan Review, which at the time was of America's leading journals of culture and politics.

Baldwin's story was longer than most stories and was given the prestigious first position in the magazine, demonstrating the respect that the magazine's editors felt Baldwin deserved.

Baldwin had long been a figure in New York's intellectual community. He had moved to Greenwich Village from Harlem in 1944, where he met Richard Wright, then America's most important black writer. Baldwin wrote for the Nation and the...
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