| Description: |
|
Product Description
C.L.R. James's correspondence with Constance Webb, the young American woman who eventually became his wife, began in 1939 and lasted for over a decade. Passionate, erudite and highly personal, the letters are simultaneously a record of an intense romantic relationship and a profound meditation on American civilization. Something powerful was unlocked by James's experience of America and his relationship with Constance, and he sought to articulate it through his attempt to bridge the gap of background, race, gender and age between Constance and himself. Already celebrated in their unpublished form, these letters form one of the major resources in James's life and thought during his American period. The film "Special Delivery" is based on these letters.
Amazon.com Review
C.L.R. James, is an extraordinary 20th century figure. An author, historian, reporter on the sport of cricket, Africanist, Marxist, black intellectual, and friend of many of the leading left radicals of the day. His history of the Haitian slave revolution, The Black Jacobins, is a masterpiece of humanity and empathy. James spent 15 years living in the United States from 1938, and there he fell in love with an 18-year-old Southern white girl, Constance Webb. It was an amazing ill-match; she really was not too interested. So he wrote her passionate love letters, collected here in Special Delivery. When the two did eventually marry, divorce quickly followed, as might have been predicted; still, these erudite letters, from one of the most intelligent and cultured men of his generation, remain an amazing testament to love, and the folly of it.
|
