Baldwin’s
Another Country is often read as a response to Norman Mailer’s 1957 essay “The White Negro.” In the essay, Mailer praises aspects of Black culture, which he views as rebellious, interesting, and necessary. However, critics like Baldwin argued that in doing so, Mailer perpetuated negative myths and stereotypes about Black people, and Black male sexuality in particular. In 1961, Baldwin published a response to Mailer’s essay titled “The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy,” in which he dismantles Mailer’s understanding of the relationship between Black culture and white culture. One year later, Baldwin published
Another Country, which deals with similar themes and issues. Baldwin’s novels, including
Go Tell It on the Mountain,
If Beale Street Could Talk, and
The Fire Next Time, portray characters from a variety of backgrounds who struggle to understand the world from one another’s perspectives. Baldwin’s work is also typically read in relation to other prominent works by Black writers who were working around the time of the Civil Rights Movement such as Martin Luther King, Jr. (
Letter from Birmingham Jail), Malcolm X (
The Autobiography of Malcolm X), and Langston Hughes (“I, Too”;
Montage of a Dream Deferred). Although Baldwin admired King, he felt that King’s presentation of Black culture to the white public was too one-note. With
Another Country, Baldwin wanted to represent deeper and often more problematic relationships within the Black community, while also expressing the rage Black people felt from oppression.