Me and My House

“The thing that startles, the trick that steals the breath as one reads Me and My House, is Magdalena J. Zaborowska's unrelenting insistence that James Baldwin was an embodied, social, thriving, and multifaceted individual deeply enmeshed in a vibrantly complicated domesticity. Not only does Zaborowska break through hackneyed accounts of Baldwin's isolation but she also disrupts the clumsy boundaries that separate critic from reader and fiction from criticism, allowing us to understand the work of James Baldwin as not simply material to be studied but also a bright model for the production of our own social and cultural critique.” - Robert F. Reid-Pharr, author of Archives of Flesh: African America, Spain, and Post-Humanist Critique

"Zaborowska's readings into Baldwin's work are thoughtful and illuminating. An opinionated and passionate book on one of the 20th century's most important writers." - Kirkus Reviews

“Magdalena J. Zaborowska is one of the foremost experts in the world on James Baldwin. Given her unparalleled access to an unusually substantial amount of source material and her deep knowledge of her subject, Me and My House offers rich new material and fresh ways of understanding Baldwin's relationship with writers, artists, and activists. Specialists and general readers alike will find this book engaging and enlightening.” - Michele Elam, editor of The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin

"Zaborowska takes you on an intricate journey in which she explores the central theme of home and what this means in terms of identity and belonging. . . . This book contains vast details of Baldwin’s life in France – full of stunning photographs and beautifully illustrated, it draws on interviews with those closest to him and unpublished letters and works. It dissects, analyses and tries to understand the life lived by Baldwin, particularly how the relationship between social space and architecture is linked to race. It enables readers to reassess the richness and complexity of his writing and gives them an opportunity to understand the man behind the work. . . ." - Kalwant Bhopal, Times Higher Education

"Relying on extensive interviews with Baldwin’s friends and lovers, manuscripts, and unpublished letters, Zaborowska introduces new insights into the writer’s life and work. Me And My House is an essential read for both serious students and scholars, but also fans wishing to know more about the life and motivations of this iconic master." - The Advocate

" [An] extremely sensitive, thorough and well-informed appraisal of Baldwin’s final French sojourn by one of the leading scholars of the writer’s work and life." - Claudine Raynaud, European Journal of American Culture

“Zaborowska delivers a wide-ranging argument for the influence of James Baldwin’s final home in St. Paul-de-Vence in the South of France on his late works. . . . Me and My House’s greatest strengths lie in Zaborowska’s curatorial impulse.”

“Zaborowska describes in full, rich detail the actual home that Baldwin established in the south of France, recreating its physical qualities and also the extraordinary community he assembled there. . . . The image of Baldwin that emerges from this book is therefore quite different from the isolated stranger that previous studies have established.”

"In Me and My House, Magdalena J. Zaborowska examines the impact and significance of the author's final home on his life and work in ways which open up new avenues of enquiry into the burgeoning field of Baldwin studies." - Douglas Field, Journal of American Studies