A Letter From The Editor

First Encounters

I remember vividly the first time I met Herb Boyd. It was at one of the affairs I attended constantly during the 80’s. At this one, all at once I felt eyes on me, watching my every move as I worked the room. I glanced up and saw a tall, slim black man staring at me.

Finally, he made his way over. “Hi, I’m Herb Boyd,” he said in a friendly voice, “I understand you’re the editor of The Crisis.”

That opening line began a long and fruitful relationship, both professionally and personally. In subsequent years, Boyd emerged as one of the leading writers in New York, and indeed, the country. I am proud to have played a part in helping his highly successful career,

In this issue, Peniel E. Joseph, himself a highly talented, rising young historian, spoke with Boyd concerning his latest book, Baldwin’s Harlem.

I also remember just as clearly the first time I met James Baldwin. It was the late 70’s. I was the editor/publisher of Neworld magazine attending an affair, only this time in Los Angeles at UCLA. Baldwin had just spoken. We were at a reception in his honor. Although I made a bit of a fool of myself by starting a pointless debate with him (I still have the photo of him staring up at me with a look on his face that said, “Who the hell is this young idiot, anyway?”). For me, this was a real honor.

I had watched for years a brilliant Baldwin on television giving “my fellow countrymen” as he so gracefully put it-- the hell they so richly deserved.

But ultimately, for me, Baldwin was more than a mere, passionate, eloquent polemicist. His first novel, Go Tell It on The Mountain, was a creative masterpiece of genuine Americana.

And his first collection of essays, Nobody Knows My Name, was all that a serious essayist can hope for. He raised the literary essay to new heights. I have read this exceptional collection of deeply felt, personal essays over and over again; and even today, they remain as fresh, and provocative as when Baldwin first wrote them.

His long essay, the bestselling The Fire Next Time, was said by many to have spurred the Civil Rights Movement to even greater militancy.

In many ways, Baldwin the novelist was competing with Baldwin the essayist throughout his writing career.

During the 60’s, a leading black jazzman was once asked what he thought of Baldwin. He famously replied, “Oh, that’s the cat with all those commas?”

There was no question that commas abound in Baldwin’s writing, but those commas separated some of the finest writing in 20th Century literature.

There is much, much more in this issue. I am glad you picked us up. Thank you for your support.

Fred Beauford

Editor-in-Chief/publisher

Neworld Review
Vol. 1 No 3

Editor-in-Chief/publisher

Fred Beauford

Art Director

Bernie Rollins

Associate Publisher/Advertising Director

Margaret Johnstone

Senior Editors

Herb Boyd

Angela Dodson

Contributing Editors

Peniel E. Joseph

Jane M McCabe: books

James Petcoff: theater

Rona Edwards:film

Jan Alexander

Russell Burge: visual arts

Teri Harlee King

The Neworld Review is a publication of Morton Books, Inc. Rob Morton, President/CEO, in cooperation with Baby Mogul Productions, 78 Randolph Avenue, Jersey City, N.J. 07305, 201-761-9084. Material in this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission. Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. Manuscripts should be accompanied by a self-stamped envelope. Online submissions ar3e accepted at [email protected]. Neworld Review cannot be held responsible for unsolicited photographs or manuscripts.

All correspondence to:

Fred Beauford

Editor-in Chief/Publisher

78 Randolph Avenue

Jersey City, N.J. 07305

Telephone 201-761-9084

fbeauford
@hotmail.com

Archives

VOL. 1 NO. 1 2008

VOL. 1 NO. 2 2008

This Month's Articles

INTERVIEW

Conversation With Herb Boyd

By Peniel E. Joseph

I had the pleasure of conducting this interview with Herb Boyd about his latest book Baldwin’s Harlem. Having written the book’s preface, I can attest to the fact that this is one of the most important books produced to date on Baldwin. In many ways Boyd’s extensive experience as an author, journalist, and.....Read More

REVIEWING

BALDWIN’S HARLEM:
A Biography of James Baldwin

By Herb Boyd

Reviewed By Robert Fleming

Herb Boyd’s informative, detailed account, Baldwin’s Harlem, presents the full range of the artistic and emotional terrains of James Baldwin and the uptown Manhattan area known as ‘the cultural capital of Black America.” Harlem also has a solid grip on the literary soul of writer Herb Boyd, a Detroit native, a journalist and author of many books on black themes. In his latest work, Boyd has successfully channeled Baldwin’s complex.....Read More

REVIEWING

Barak Obama, Read These Books!:
And Be Sure to Look to the Right

In Defense of the Bush Doctrine by Robert G. Kaufman,

Great American Hypocrites—
Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics by Glenn Greenwald

Reviewed by Jane M. McCabe

To tell the truth I would not have read either of these books had not the founder and editor of NeWorld Review, Mr. Fred Beauford, selected them and asked me to read them, but I have plowed through them (neither was an easy nor a fun read), and I do not consider my time .....Read More

ARTIST STORY

Space to Be

A California studio indulges the artist's spirit

By Teri Harllee King

Marin County, California

The flow of creative energy is both fluid and complex. It is as if our environment has to be fine-tuned to our personality, producing just the correct harmony for the floodgates to open and allow the creative juices to flow unimpeded. Not that an artist cannot create under even the harshest, most miserable circumstances. But every artist ....Read More

REVIEWING

Beauty and Compromise

Art of the Plantation South Casts Light On a Complex, Fantasized Past Best Recalled in Soft Focus and Pale Colors.

Reviewed by Russell Burge

Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art
Edited by Angela D. Mack and Stephen G. Hoffius

They emerge as from water, rising above the field to meet the light of the sun. Their harvest tumbles from the canvas, golden stalks of rice cascading in a brilliant deluge. Though they turn their faces away from us, we surmise an identity from the make of their clothes and the color of their skin — these are black laborers working in nineteenth century America......Read More

BEYOND BOOKS: Film

RONA’S REEL TAKE:

THEY JUST CAN’T GET NO RESPECT!
(afterthoughts on the Writer’s Strike)

By Rona Edwards

Now that the writer’s strike is over, I am reminded of the old joke about the foreign actress (used to be the Polish actress but substitute whomever is considered low on the ethnic totem pole this season). Anyway, this foreign actress comes to Hollywood to make it big and ends up sleeping with the writer! Ha! Ha! The punch line of that joke never ceased to amaze me – because after all, without the writer, there would be no television shows or movies. Yet the last thirty.....Read More

BEYOND BOOKS: Theater

A Whore, A Whore, My Kingdom For A Whore!

Pinter's enduring work delivers again in the hands of a skillful cast

Reviewed by James Petcoff

The Homecoming

By Harold Pinter

Directed by Daniel Sullivan

A play that stands the test of time, multiple revivals and interpretations over four decades must have something important to pass on to each new generation. That experience of cathartic transfer that skilled actors provide to an audience as they interact verbally and through motion and silence can spark new interest, understanding and interpretation of motivation to a work accepted as a great piece of theatre. So it is with the Cort Theatre’s....Read More

BEYOND BOOKS: Short Fiction

The Apparition:

By Fred Beauford

“The terrible silence of God.”

IT WAS 7:36AM, Sunday, December 10, 2008. I was out early. I love Sunday mornings. Always have. I know that this is not a time for “sleeping in.” This was a quiet, blessed time to be outdoors, whatever the season. The many tourists crawling all over Manhattan, even turning Harlem, on Sundays, into a white Mecca-- have not quite yet fully awaken; the city’s lowlifes were still peacefully asleep, blissfully unaware of what they where missing; no .....Read More