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While much distinguishes Baldwin’s writing from Coates’, both brandish a mode of collective address, inhabiting the role of native informant and laying bare the inner life of racialized communities. In an open letter to his nephew, Baldwin sounds off on the apocalyptic consequences of American racism, while Coates reflects on the same ever-present force in an extended letter to his son. His 2015 bestselling epistolary memoir, Between the World and Me, mimicked the structure of the popular essay that comprises half of Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time (1963).

Ta-Nehisi Coates is often credited with kickstarting the Baldwin revival. This summer, we may have reached peak Baldwin: Instagram was rife with the author’s quotations, and his books topped “anti-racist reading lists.” Begin Again quickly climbed bestseller lists, earning a number of glowing reviews - hardly surprising, given that, over these past few years, Baldwin has certainly been back in vogue. W ith Eddie Glaude Jr.’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, the recent surplus of James Baldwin features has grown another monograph larger.