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Hello, my name is Raseer Iqbal.

Welcome to episode six of our new podcast,

Notes on a Native son about James Baldwin,

because 2024 is the 100th birth anniversary of a man unique in American letters.

Novelist essayist activist. The list is long and for Baldwin probably meaningless who and what James Baldwin was and what is his legacy can't really be listed but it can and perhaps should be found in his work.

He refused any attempt to box him in.

This podcast tries to get close to the idea of getting to know

James Baldwin through his work and those who love his

words and return to them. We've called it notes on a native son after one of Baldwin's most

famous autobiographical essays, notes of a native son.

That essay clarifies with profound power what he is and what America is on his terms. In each episode of Notes on a Native son, we invite a well-known figure to choose

a special or significant James Baldwin Passage.

The conversation that ensues tells us as much about Baldwin's story as it does about the person who loves Jimmy,

as he was known to all who loved him.

Our guest on this episode of Notes on a Native son is the writer Carol Phillips, or Caz as he's often known.

Caz not only's often known.

Caz not only loved Jimmy, but knew him.

Regarded him as a friend and perhaps a mentor too.

Carol Phillips was born on the Caribbean island of St Kitts and moved to Leeds in Northern England

when he was just four months old. It was as a student at Oxford where he first

encountered the work of James Baldwin and their actual first meeting was the first time

...