Giovanni’s Room

One of the BBC’s ‘100 Novels That Shaped Our World’

Baldwin’s ground-breaking second novel, which established him as one of the great American writers of his time

‘Audacious… remarkable… elegant and courageous’ Caryl Phillips

‘Exquisite, a feat of fire-breathing, imaginative daring’ Guardian

David, a young American in 1950s Paris, is waiting for his fiancée to return from vacation in Spain. But when he meets Giovanni, a handsome Italian barman, the two men are drawn into an intense affair. After three months David’s fiancée returns and, denying his sexuality, he rejects Giovanni for a ‘safe’ future as a married man — a decision that will bring tragedy, longing and regret.

‘Gorgeous, fearless, tempered by dark knowledge and pain … the greatest American prose stylist of his generation’ Colm Tóibín

‘A layered exploration of queer desire … It is electric’ Hilton Als