The Revolutionary and Pioneering Impact of the Classic 1967 Novel THE MAN WHO CRIED I AM by the groundbreaking African American writer John A. Williams (1925-2015)

Black Writers in Paris, the FBI, and a Lost 1960s Classic: Rediscovering The Man Who Cried I Am

Library of America

November 9, 2023 

The expatriate literary scene in Paris that flourished around Richard Wright and James Baldwin produced brilliant writing, intellectual ferment, and bitter rivalries—all of it, and much else from that turbulent time, thrillingly explored in John A. Williams’s explosive 1967 novel, The Man Who Cried I Am, a lost classic newly published in paperback by LOA. Merve Emre (The Personality Brokers), Adam Bradley (The Anthology of Rap; One Day It’ll All Make Sense), and William Maxwell (F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature) join LOA LIVE to explore this panoramic novel of Black American life in the era of segregation, civil rights, and paranoiac Cold War politics—Bradley enlists it in “the new Black canon”—and what it can tell us about the anxious world Williams moved in and our own politically unsettled moment. 

 

Library of America president and publisher Max Rudin moderates. 

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 

John Alfred Williams (1925–2015) was an African American author, journalist, and professor of English at Rutgers University. He won the American Book Awards Lifetime Achievement award in 2011. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1925 and raised from childhood in Syracuse, New York he earned a degree in English and Journalism from Syracuse University in 1950 (after service in the navy). After the publication of his first novel The Angry Ones in 1960 John A. Williams went on to have a distinguished literary career, including the publication of 12 novels, and the classic 1967 bestseller, The Man Who Cried I Am.

Williams professional career included teaching at the College of the Virgin Islands, the City College of New York, Sarah Lawrence College and he was a longtime professor of English at Rutgers University.

Williams received the Syracuse University Centennial Medal for Outstanding Achievement. He is also a member of the Nation Institute of Arts and Letters. Williams also won the 1998 American Book Award for Safari West. Williams was the author of 21 fiction and non-fiction books. 

Selected bibliography

Novels

• The Angry Ones, Norton, 1960, 9780393314649; The Angry Ones: A Novel. Open Road Media. February 2, 2016. ISBN 978-1-5040-2591-1.
• Night Song, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1961; Night Song: A Novel. Open Road Media. February 2, 2016. ISBN 978-1-5040-2572-0.
• Sissie, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1963; Chatham Bookseller, 1975, ISBN 9780911860535
• The Man Who Cried I Am, Little, Brown, 1967; The Man Who Cried I Am: A Novel. Library of America. November 7, 2023. ISBN 978-1598537611.
• Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light, Little, Brown, 1969; Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970, ISBN 9780413446206
• Captain Blackman, Coffee House Press, 1972, ISBN 9781566890960 Captain Blackman: A Novel. Open Road Media. February 2, 2016. ISBN 978-1-5040-3264-3.
• Mothersill and the Foxes, Doubleday, 1975, ISBN 9780385094542
• The Junior Bachelor Society, Doubleday, 1976, ISBN 9780385094559
• !Click Song, 1982 ISBN 9780395318416; !Click Song: A Novel. Open Road Media. February 2, 2016. ISBN 978-1-5040-3304-6.
• The Berhama Account, New Horizon Press Publishers, 1985, ISBN 9780882820095
• Jacob's Ladder, New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1987; 1989, ISBN 9780938410768
• Clifford's Blues, Coffee House Press, 1999, ISBN 9781566890809; Clifford's Blues: A Novel. Open Road Media. February 2, 2016. ISBN 978-1-5040-3305-3.

Non-fiction

• Africa: Her History, Lands and People: Told with Pictures. Rowman & Littlefield. 1962. ISBN 978-0-8154-0258-9.
• This Is My Country Too (New American Library, 1965)^[16]
• The King God Didn't Save: Reflections on the Life and Death of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1970)
• The Most Native of Sons: A Biography of Richard Wright (1970)
• Flashbacks: A Twenty-Year Diary of Article Writing (1973)
• If I Stop I'll Die: The Comedy and Tragedy of Richard Pryor (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991)

Poetry

• Safari West: Poems (Hochelaga Press, 1998)

Letters

• Dear Chester, Dear John: Letters between Chester Himes and John A. Williams (compiled and edited with Lori Williams), Wayne State University Press, 2008, ISBN 9780814333556

Conversations with John A. Williams
by Jeffrey Allen Tucker (Editor)
University Press of Mississippi, 2018

[Publication date:  March 15, 2018]

 

One of the most prolific African American authors of his time, John A. Williams (1925-2015) made his mark as a journalist, educator, and writer. Having worked for Newsweek, Ebony, and Jet magazines, Williams went on to write twelve novels and numerous works of nonfiction. A vital link between the Black Arts movement and the previous era, Williams crafted works of fiction that relied on historical research as much as his own finely honed skills. From The Man Who Cried I Am, a roman à clef about expatriate African American writers in Europe, to Clifford's Blues, a Holocaust novel told in the form of the diary entries of a gay, black, jazz pianist in Dachau, these representations of black experiences marginalized from official histories make him one of our most important writers.

Conversations with John A. Williams collects twenty-three interviews with the three-time winner of the American Book Award, beginning with a discussion in 1969 of his early works and ending with a previously unpublished interview from 2005. Gathered from print periodicals as well as radio and television programs, these interviews address a range of topics, including anti-black violence, Williams's WWII naval service, race and publishing, interracial romance, Martin Luther King Jr., growing up in Syracuse, the Prix de Rome scandal, traveling in Africa and Europe, and his reputation as an angry black writer. The conversations prove valuable given how often Williams drew from his own life and career for his fiction. They display the integrity, social engagement, and artistic vision that make him a writer to be reckoned with.

About the Author

Jeffrey Allen Tucker, Rochester, New York, is associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Rochester. He is author of A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, and Difference and coeditor of Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century.