When considering the life experiences that make renowned writer James Baldwin so compelling a subject for discussions of exile, Baldwin's travels and residence abroad are paramount. Self-described as a “transatlantic commuter,” Baldwin wrote from several different places in the world but frequently wrote about the United States. The perspective he developed through these movements shuttling to and from “home” informed his understanding of exile as a multi-form experience. In this essay, I consider how Baldwin inherits an artist's sense of exile, develops his own, and then relates its conditions in ways that inform his legacy, specifically what subsequent generations of writers contend they inherit from him. To do so, I juxtapose Baldwin's reflections on three of his influences—Henry James, Richard Wright, and Beauford Delaney, all fellow expatriates—with those from contemporary writers, specifically Eddie Glaude, James Cone, and Jesmyn Ward, who cite Baldwin as an influence. I argue that reading across and between these insights enables a deeper understanding of why Baldwin defined his own experience of exile as a voluntary, privileged, deeply affecting, traumatic, and complexly generative force.
