New Books Network John Drabinski, "So Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the Black Atlantic" (Northwestern UP, 2025)
Feb 18, 2026
John Drabinski, Professor of African American and Africana Studies and English at the University of Maryland, reads Baldwin philosophically. He situates Baldwin in the mid-20th-century Black Atlantic and probes what Baldwin leaves out. Topics include Baldwin’s origin narratives, images of race, Black English as world-making language, and Baldwin’s distinctive optimism versus Afro-pessimism.
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From Lima To A Decade Of Reading
- John Drabinski describes a turning point after a conference in Lima that pushed him from European-focused work toward studying the Black Americas.
- He then spent over a decade reading broadly across Black intellectual traditions to reorient his research and teaching.
Prompted By A Colleague's Persistence
- Drabinski tells how colleague Jeff Ferguson repeatedly urged him to read Baldwin until he conceded and read Baldwin's nonfiction cover to cover.
- That summer reading led Drabinski to teach Baldwin seminars and begin the book project.
Read Baldwin Through The Black Atlantic
- Drabinski argues Baldwin must be read within the mid-20th-century Black Atlantic even when Baldwin rarely cites diasporic thinkers.
- Reading for absences reveals how Baldwin's U.S.-rooted voice responds to broader transatlantic debates about language, place, and culture.
