Baldwin grew up in a family of a stepfather, a priest and was the oldest of nine children. Baldwin never knew his own father and partially suffered from this, which was reflected in some of his works. In his youth, Baldwin is going to follow in the footsteps of his stepfather and helps him in the church. But the older the future writer becomes, the more distinctly he understands that his stepfather’s sermons diverge from what is happening on the streets of Harlem, and, most importantly, with the behavior of the stepfather himself at home. After leaving school in the Bronx, Baldwin moved to Greenwich Village, where his literary career began. After spending childhood and youth in Harlem and Greenwich Village - in one of the most disadvantaged areas of New York - Baldwin begins to write about his views and understanding of what is happening around. His first journalistic articles are imbued with a spirit of denial of racism reigning around a young man. That is why, having received an award for his first fiction novel “Go Broadcast from the Mountain”, in 1948 Baldwin left the USA and went to the Old World, to Paris.
