Another Country

James Baldwin, Colm Toibin

From Shelf: @henajbryan's list of books that all black-british men should read

After Rufus Scott, an embittered and unemployed black jazz-musician commits suicide, his sister Ida and old friend Vivaldo become lovers. Yet their feelings for each other are complicated by Rufus's friends, especially the homosexual actor Eric Jones who has been Vivaldo's lover.

'A masterwork... an almost unbearable, tumultuous, blood-pounding experience' Washinton PostWhen Another Country appeared in 1962, it caused a literary sensation. James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit.'In Another Country, Baldwin created the essential American drama of the century' Colm Toibin