November 19, 2024
We welcomed Yahdon Israel, founder of The Literaryswag Book Club and Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster, and Robert Jones, Jr. (formerly known as “Son of Baldwin”), the New York Times bestselling author of The Prophets, for a dynamic conversation about James Baldwin’s fiction. The pair discussed the powerful link between Baldwin’s faith and artistic imagination that enabled him to create a language of possibility on the page—and how we can all work to apply this in our own lives.
In Conversation
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Yahdon Israel
Yahdon Israel
Yahdon Israel is a Senior editor at Simon Schuster and founder of Literaryswag, a cultural movement that intersects literature and fashion to make books accessible. He has written for the New Inquiry, LitHub, Poets and Writers, Vanity Fair, and the Atlantic. He teaches Creative Writing at the MFA Program at City College, previously served on the Board of the National Book Critics Circle, and founded the Literaryswag Book Club, a Brooklyn-based subscription service and book club that meets every last Wednesday of the month.
Photo Credit: John Midgley
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Robert Jones, Jr.
Robert Jones, Jr.
Robert Jones, Jr. (formerly known as “Son of Baldwin”) is a Brooklyn, New York-based writer and public speaker. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets, which was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction. His writings have been featured in the New York Times, Essence, Variety, and the Paris Review. Subscribe to Robert’s newsletter, Witness, at robertjonesjr.substack.com.
Photo Credit: DP Jolly
