A New Biography Offers the Most Intimate Portrait Yet of One of the 20th Century’s Greatest Authors
Research into James Baldwin’s archives reveals incisive details about the writer’s personal relationships, both platonic and romantic, with other men
In 1950, James Baldwin and his lover, the painter Lucien Happersberger, set out from Paris for the mountains of Switzerland, where Baldwin, then around 25, hoped to climb his way out of a creative funk. It worked: While hiking, Baldwin nearly fell down a ravine, but Happersberger grabbed him, saving his life. “Out of this frightening, biblical experience,” writes Nicholas Boggs in his new book, Baldwin: A Love Story, “that day Baldwin conjured the final title for his novel. Go Tell It on the Mountain.”
Drawing on previous scholarship, materials held at archives such as Yale University’s Baldwin collection, and decades of interviews with Baldwin and his friends and confidants, Boggs’ book is the first major biography of the writer to focus on his most intimate male relationships, both romantic and platonic. Boggs shows, for instance, how Happersberger, whom Baldwin met a year after moving to Paris and later called the love of his life, gave the young writer the sense of connection and rootedness he needed to write during a time of tremendous uncertainty, having recently left behind his life in New York.
Boggs also writes about how Beauford Delaney, a Black, gay painter 20 years Baldwin’s senior, whom the writer called his “spiritual father,” helped the young writer, then struggling with his craft and sexual identity, “to see the beauty of the world around him, and to begin to see it within himself.” And the book relays a touching story about how Delaney gave Baldwin the courage to buy a one-way ticket to Paris by promising to join him there—though at the time neither of them was certain it would happen.
Previous books about Baldwin treated his relationships with men, whether lovers or friends, as a side note or ignored them almost entirely. By focusing on these men—other examples include Yoran Cazac, a French artist and sometimes lover, and Engin Cezzar, a Turkish actor and creative collaborator—Boggs traces the relationships that “shaped [Baldwin’s] life and art, which in turn has had such an indelible impact on the literary and political landscape of the 20th century.” In Boggs’ hands, Baldwin’s life story feels complete.
Baldwin: A Love Story
Drawing on new archival material, original research, and interviews, this spellbinding book is the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, revealing how profoundly his personal relationships shaped his life and work.
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This article is a selection from the July/August 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine
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