The Fire Next Time

The Fire Next Time is a 1963 non-fiction book by James Baldwin, containing two essays: "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation" and "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind". The book's title comes from a couplet in "Mary Don't You Weep", an African-American spiritual: The first essay, written in the form of a letter to Baldwin's 14-year-old nephew, discusses the central role of race in American history. The second essay, which takes up the majority of the book, deals with the relations between race and religion, focusing in particular on Baldwin's experiences with the Christian church as a youth, as well as the Islamic ideas of others in Harlem. The two essays were first respectively published in American magazines in late 1962: "Letter from a Region of My Mind" in The New Yorker, and "My Dungeon Shook" in The Progressive. They were then combined and published in book form in 1963 by Dial Press, and in 1964 in Britain by Penguin Books. Critics greeted the book enthusiastically; it is considered, by some, as one of the most influential books about race relations in the 1960s. It was released in an audiobook format in 2008, narrated by Jesse L. Martin.