Nicholas Boggs

They could.

And news just broke last week that Marlon James is writing a biopic of James Baldwin based on Nicholas Boggs' book.

So Baldwin can show up here.

Maybe we can get Marlon James.

As always, we're grateful to the Blavatnik Family Foundation for its generous support of this podcast.

I'm thrilled today to be joined by Nicholas Boggs, the New York Times bestselling author of Baldwin, A Love Story, which is shortlisted for this year's prize.

Nicholas is a writer and assistant professor of English and creative writing at Stony Brook University.

He's the recipient of a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and a number of highly prestigious fellowships, including the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library.

As well as being shortlisted for this year's Bailey Gifford Prize, it was recently awarded the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.

It is, remarkably, the first major biography of James Baldwin in over three decades and reveals how the celebrated writer's intimate and artistic relationships shaped his life and work.

In this book, Nicholas Boggs unveils the public and private lives of one of the 20th century's major literary figures.

Nicholas, thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on being shortlisted for this year's award.

Novelist Marlon James and biographer Nicholas Boggs have both made it onto the shortlists for significant British literary awards.

James is a nominee for the Booker Prize with The Disappearers, a novel that explores the harsh realities of AIDS-era gay life and homophobia in Jamaica.

Boggs has been shortlisted for the Bailey Gifford Prize for Nonfiction for Baldwin, A Love Story, which draws on 20 years of research into James Baldwin's intimate life and creative relationships.

Yes.

Nicholas Boggs, Emily St. John Mandel, Douglas Stewart, Edwidge Danticat, Arthur Zee, and Disha Filia, who is... local from Pittsburgh

yes we wanted to end the year with Disha Filio because she has a lot to say about Pittsburgh right and so that's one thing that we wanted to do and the good thing about our lectures right so we of course we want to bring the biggest names right in the world mentioned the Michael Lewis right Edwin Jantica, who was just a finalist for the National Book Award, Emil St. John Mendel.

But I always try to have someone that we will introduce to the public as well, right? And for me this year, that was Nicholas Borg.

Like, how did all of those words not make it into my feeds and, like, news awareness? Uh, but yeah.

So we, we do know that Higher Ground is producing a Baldwin movie based on Nicholas Boggs' book, and, uh, you know, being adapted by a no name Marlon James.

[laughs] Like, cool.

Yeah.

So-

[laughs]

And Nicholas Boggs and Marlon James are partners.

Partners, right.

I first came across it in my partner's biography of James Baldwin.

My partner is Nicholas Boggs.

And he wrote a biography of James Baldwin that came out last year called Baldwin, The Love Story.

And this wasn't the first play that I used.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Harvard scholar Stephen Greenblatt joins us to discuss Dark Renaissance, his riveting portrait of Marlowe's genius, criminality, and enduring mark on literature.

and writer Nicholas Boggs.

He's written the first major James Baldwin biography in 30 years.

It's a fresh portrait that reveals how Baldwin's most intimate relationships shaped his writing and activism, reframing his legacy for a new generation.

I'm Jared Bowen.

This is The Culture Show.

Nicholas Boggs first read James Baldwin as a teenager when he borrowed his twin sister's copy of Giovanni's Room.

He never gave it back.

I can't wait.

We'll have a last book today by James Baldwin's biographer, Nicholas Boggs.

Will he choose a book by Baldwin or go with something else? And here's a little treat.

He tells us what James Baldwin's choice was for his last book, the last book he would ever read, and it kind of surprised me.

I love it all.

I also love it when I'm surprised, and this did the trick.

Nicholas Boggs told me his choice for his last book he would ever read, and he threw in James Baldwin's choice of his last book for good measure.

I'll let Nicholas take things from there.