Desu is the present positive form of 'be': is. Ka is a question marker when the last sound in a sentence. Japanese grammar also puts desu at the end of sentences. So 'desu ka' is just a combination of the two. I could mean 'isn't it', but that's just a lose translation, I believe.
Notes of a Native Son (1955) is James Baldwin's first book, a collection of essays that are an autobiographical exploration of his experiences growing up in Harlem, his travels in Europe (and the... In the book Native Son, is Bigger's lawyer Max Jewish?
She is at her best in her accounts of Wright's collaboration with the white Southern playwright Paul Green on the dramatization of ''Native Son'' (directed on Broadway by Orson Welles in 1941) and of Wright's sojourn in pre-independence Ghana, which produced his nonfiction book ''Black Power'' (1954).