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James Baldwin’s Another Country (1962) shows the author’s most serious attempt to confront the problems of race and sexuality. Among many themes the novel engages concerning the issues of race, sexuality, homophobia, masculinity, identity, and love, the most significant is Baldwin’s representations of Rufus Scott, the black gay man, whose type has never appeared in his previous novels, nor perhaps in the works written by African American writers before Baldwin. In this essay, my primary concern is with the connection between Rufus and Baldwin, suggesting that Rufus is the figure for Baldwin’s self-representation, the figure for Baldwin’s revelation of his black homosexuality—a revelation which he has not been able to do in his previous novels. Focusing on this connection between the author and the character, I will explore the possibility of Another Country as being Baldwin’s personal declaration of independence―independence from the categories, labels, prejudices, and all sorts of socially constructed norms that have restricted his literary imagination as a black homosexual writer as well as his freedom to express his true individual self.