Tomlinson, Robert. “‘Payin’ One’s Dues’: Expatriation as Personal

Experience and Paradigm in the Works of James Baldwin.”

African American Review, 33.1 (1999): 135-148. Print.

Tomlinson begins by mentioning the importance of Baldwin’s experience living in Europe to his personal and creative life. Living in Paris helped Baldwin realize his American past and African American “sense of alienation.”  He recognized a “double alienation” being an American in Europe and person of African descent in the United States, a problem he meditated on in his final novel, Just Above My Head.  Tomlinson notes that this novel shows Baldwin’s consciousness to the fact that “we are never free from history.”  He concludes that Baldwin’s writings about his personal experiences with expatriation reflected the “post-colonial dilemma.”