You may select/deselect as you choose. He had however already befriended Richard Wright in Greenwich Village who had helped him gain his first fellowship. All the while a small battalion of crisp-collared waiters shuffled elegantly between the tightly ordered tables and stiff wicker chairs, their every gesture backed by the steady cadence of white porcelain cups tapping against saucers and the gentle clank of Art Deco silverware. Both have rich intellectual and literary histories, boasting a list of luminaries — writers, artists, actors and philosophers that include Ernest Hemingway, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Pablo Picasso and Albert Camus. Thank you again. He was especially critical of Hoover and the FBI. “It is perfectly possible to be enamoured of Paris while remaining totally indifferent or even hostile to the French.”—James Baldwin. As the French historian Michel Fabre noted in his book “From Harlem to Paris (Black American Writers in France, 1840-1980),” France may have served as “a place of shelter from what Baldwin called, ‘the American madness,’ ” but that time has clearly passed. I discovered the smartly gentrified, red brick and masonry townhouses hidden in the alleyways near the Place des Fêtes. I even visited the northern suburbs of Paris, investigating La Maladrerie, an elegantly conceived public housing project in Aubervilliers, where writers and artists’ studios were located alongside general housing. He lived in the Rue Verneuil, (Serge Gainsbourg’s home for years), hooking up immediately with Richard Wright in Les Deux Magots on the first night he arrived. This small, sparely and simply written book set in 1950s Paris of a love affair between two men, vividly describes not only the emotional torment of each man, but also the underbelly of the seedier bars and clubs in the less salubrious quartiers of la capitale. Its location places it directly across St.-Benoît from its chief rival, Les Deux Magots.
James Baldwin wasn’t the only American writer who spent time in the City of Light. His stepfather died when James was 19 which gave him the freedom to make his own decisions, no longer under the influence of his stepfather’s often tyrannical rule.
All over Paris they sit behind their counters like a mother bird in a nest and brood over the cash-register as though it were an egg. His first essay in Zero argued forcefully against the idea of the protest novel, claiming, among other things, that it was inherently sentimental, and therefore dishonest. To further my search, I had invited the expatriate African-American novelist — and Baldwin enthusiast — Jake Lamar to join me at Les Deux Magots, hoping he would catch any gaps in my itinerary. I am so pleased you enjoyed 'Giovanni's Room' Dennis. From there she lived in Mallorca, London, Oman, and Dubai, where she moved with her husband and young son and worked for Gulf News, Khaleej Times and freelanced for Emirates Woman magazine. James Baldwin may have died in his beloved France in St Paul de Vence, but he was buried in Harlem in Ferncliffe Cemetery, Greenburgh, New York. Both have similar menus, and prices. And yet I couldn’t actually picture a young James Baldwin living in any of these places. Handing the menu back to him, I wondered how a starving young writer, as Baldwin had been when he first visited the Flore, might afford the same, somewhat pricey croque today. Baldwin associated with many of these students, mostly ex-G.I.’s, writing about his experiences with them in the essay “A Question of Identity.”. However, James Baldwin always has a special place in my heart. (The French government banned smoking indoors years ago, making it difficult to conjure up an image of Baldwin at Le Select chain-smoking while scribbling furiously on a yellow legal pad in one of the tight rear booths.)
Go Tell it on a Mountain was written in the Café de Flore, and the wonderful Art Deco cafe, Le Select in Montparnasse, saw Baldwin studiously writing Giovanni’s Room. Belleville or Château Rouge for ethnic diversity. Jake was reminding me that Baldwin and Wright’s quarrel had begun upstairs from where we sat, facing the cobblestone Place St.-Germain-des-Prés and l’Église St.-Germain-des-Prés itself, the oldest church in Paris. His phone was tapped and disguised FBI agents even followed him abroad through France, Britain and Italy. In the spring of 1984, during an interview for The Paris Review, a nearly 60-year-old Baldwin was asked why he had chosen to live in France, to which he replied: “It wasn’t so much a matter of choosing France — it was a matter of getting out of America.” The problem of racism in America was for Baldwin so consuming and, to his mind, deadly that he feared he wouldn’t have survived it if he’d stayed, let alone been able to isolate himself enough to write. His friends, a diverse group, including Ray Charles (for whom he wrote several songs), Josephine Baker, Sidney Poitier and Yves Montand with his wife, Simone Signoret, were regular visitors.
In fact, homosexuality was positively deplored.
Baldwin’s main night-life posse included the painter Beauford Delaney, the composer Howard Swanson, the dancer Bernard Hassell and the writer Ernest Charles Nimmo, known as Dixie, according to sources including Monique Wells, founder of the blog Entrée to Black Paris. This interview was conducted in the two places dearest to James Baldwin’s struggle as a writer. Nearby, pigeons flutter in front of l’Église St.-Germain-des-Prés, the oldest church in Paris. Baldwin has maintained a grip on my imagination ever since my freshman year of college, when I read his novel “Giovanni’s Room.” Set in 1950s Paris, the novel tells the story of an ill-fated love affair between the narrator, David, a young American ex-soldier, and a darkly handsome Italian barman named Giovanni. After some dreary years in the Civil Service, Marilyn realized her dream of living in Paris.
I was retracing James Baldwin’s steps through Paris, while asking myself where Baldwin might be living if he were in the city now. Baldwin worked on his first novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” at the cafe. He was as outspoken verbally as he was in his writing. Other friends and colleagues, I explained, had made suggestions based on one characteristic or another: the Marais, given Baldwin’s night life and homosexuality. It was a mild, sunny day, and exiting the Métro station I was struck by how little had changed in St.-Germain since I’d caught my first glimpse of the neighborhood back in the late ’90s. I shall certainly investigate more black writers in France. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case with Les Halles. Virtually unpublished, he had left New York to escape American racism — an escape that he believed literally saved his life and made it possible for him to write.
It was obvious when the Black Civil Rights Movement started in America that Baldwin would be a part of it, making friends with Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte and Lorraine Hansberry.
I discovered the magic of James Baldwin and a long tradition of other Black American intellectuals who flocked to Paris to escape racism back home.
He had come full circle on a remarkable journey. And yet upon arriving in France, he had no illusions that Paris was among the “most civilized of cities,” nor did he consider the French among the “least primitive of peoples.” During those early years he stayed in France because, as a black man, he perceived that the ruling-class whites there simply left him alone, unlike those in America, and that’s what allowed him to develop as a writer.