October 30, 1979 (page 20 of 56).

‘Londoner’s Diary’ no author.

‘Talking Baldwin’

Meeting a Harlem-trained street kid is always a slightly unnerving experience, especially when on his last visit to London he had a much reported blazing row with an Irishman. Fortunately, James Baldwin was in affable mood and installed in the docile splendour of the Park Lane Hotel when I encountered him last night. “I don’t think I’m belligerent at all,” the 55-year-old novelist told me. “The message people get may be different from the messenger.”

Baldwin’s message on this visit is that we should buy his new novel Just Above My Head. But he was quite prepared to discuss everything from the cathartic power of the Blues to black American dialect. His vision of London’s inter-racial future was not encouraging. “The difference between New York and London is your slaves were never on the main-land. Now they’re free you can’s afford them.”