For the last stretch of his life Baldwin wrote in the south of France, in an old stone house perched in the hills. It was the refuge he'd been looking for, and he worked there in longhand late into the night.
The House in the Hills
Baldwin moved to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a medieval town in the hills above the Mediterranean, around 1970. The house was old stone, and it became the place he wrote, hosted friends, and finally died. He never technically owned it, though by the end he was in the process of buying it from his landlady, with whom he'd grown close.
Why France, and why so far from Harlem? Baldwin had left the United States looking for room to breathe, away from the hostility he met at home. Saint-Paul gave him that distance. It was quiet, it was beautiful, and it let him keep the strange hours his work demanded.
I start working when everyone has gone to bed.
James Baldwin, The Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 78 (1984)
How the Room Worked
Wherever he sat, the method stayed the same. Baldwin wrote in longhand on legal pads, even though he owned a typewriter, because the slower pace produced shorter, cleaner sentences. The night did the rest. Once the house emptied of voices, he'd begin and push on until three or four in the morning. For the daily rhythm behind all of this, see the full James Baldwin writing routine.
Earlier in his life the geography had shifted often, from Harlem to Paris to a return to the United States and back again. The constant wasn't the city. It was the conditions, which were silence, solitude, and a pad of paper in front of him after midnight.
What You Can Steal
- Find a place that lets you keep your hours. Baldwin chose a town quiet enough for a night writer.
- The room matters less than the conditions. Silence and solitude traveled with him from city to city.
- Pick tools that shape the work. Longhand kept his sentences short, so he kept using it.
- Distance can be a tool. Leaving home gave him the space to write about it clearly.