Told in the form of two intensely personal 'letters', The Fire Next Time is at once a powerful evocation of Baldwin's early life in Harlem and an excoriating condemnation of the terrible legacy of racial injustice. 

'Sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle ... all presented in searing, brilliant prose' - The New York Times Book Review 

‘Baldwin writes with great passion... it reeks of truth, as the ghettoes of New York and London, Chicago and Manchester reek of our hypocrisy' - Sunday Times

'The great poet-prophet of the civil rights movement ... his seminal work' - Guardian