From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840-1980University of Illinois Press, 1991 - 358 pages This academic study uses accounts from more than 60 African American writers--Countee Cullen, James Baldwin, Chester Himes et al.--to explain why they were more readily accepted socially in Paris than in America. Fabre (The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright) shows that French/black American affinity started in pre-Civil War New Orleans (and not, as the title suggests, in Harlem), when illegitimate mulattos with inheritances from French slave-owners sent their children to Paris to be educated. The book concludes that acceptance and appreciation of black Americans were based largely of French distaste both for white Americans, whom the French found egotistical, and for black Africans, with whom the French had a bitter "mutual colonial history." |
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Page vii
... Literary Coming of Age in Paris 257 17 A New Mood : Black Power in Paris 269 18 Visitors All , or Nearly 285 19 William Melvin Kelley and Melvin Dixon : Change of Territory 298 20 Ted Joans : " The Surrealist Griot " 308 21 James ...
... Literary Coming of Age in Paris 257 17 A New Mood : Black Power in Paris 269 18 Visitors All , or Nearly 285 19 William Melvin Kelley and Melvin Dixon : Change of Territory 298 20 Ted Joans : " The Surrealist Griot " 308 21 James ...
Page x
... literary works by black Americans in France and their own experiences there . Since research assistants are not available in our institutions , many of my students volunteered to systematically investigate French magazines and ...
... literary works by black Americans in France and their own experiences there . Since research assistants are not available in our institutions , many of my students volunteered to systematically investigate French magazines and ...
Page 1
... literary school was created in New Orleans by free people of color or that some of the members of this French - speaking group were educated in France ? One of them , Victor Séjour , enjoyed a suc- cessful career as a playwright in ...
... literary school was created in New Orleans by free people of color or that some of the members of this French - speaking group were educated in France ? One of them , Victor Séjour , enjoyed a suc- cessful career as a playwright in ...
Page 6
... literary works of French - speaking blacks , began to spread the ideol- ogy of negritude in the United States . The rising popularity of the themes of negritude - blackness and " soul " -blotted out the French dream to some extent ...
... literary works of French - speaking blacks , began to spread the ideol- ogy of negritude in the United States . The rising popularity of the themes of negritude - blackness and " soul " -blotted out the French dream to some extent ...
Page 7
... literary ancestors he was looking for , however , were not French or European writers but Wright and Hughes and all those who had developed their talents in France . Thus began a sort of literary pilgrimage to the places where the ...
... literary ancestors he was looking for , however , were not French or European writers but Wright and Hughes and all those who had developed their talents in France . Thus began a sort of literary pilgrimage to the places where the ...
Contents
The New Orleans Connection | 9 |
Early Visitors Preachers and Abolitionists | 22 |
After Emancipation The Talented Tenth in Paris | 31 |
W E B Du Bois and World War I | 46 |
Langston Hughes and Alain Locke Jazz in Montmartre and African Art | 63 |
Countee Cullen The Greatest Francophile | 76 |
Claude McKay and the Two Faces of France | 92 |
Jessie Fauset and Gwendolyn Bennett | 114 |
Chester Himess Ambivalent Triumph | 215 |
William Gardner Smith An Eternal Foreigner | 238 |
Literary Coming of Age in Paris | 257 |
A New Mood Black Power in Paris | 269 |
Visitors All or Nearly | 285 |
William Melvin Kelley and Melvin Dixon Change of Territory | 298 |
Ted Joans The Surrealist Griot | 308 |
James Emanuel A Poet in Exile | 324 |
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintances African Afro-American Alain Locke Algerian Ameri American Negro artists attended autobiography Banjo beautiful become black American black American writers Bois Boulevard café Césaire Chester Himes civil Claude McKay colonial colored Countee Cullen culture Dixon enjoyed Europe European exile expatriates Fauset feel felt France French French-speaking friends girl Harlem hereafter cited Hotel inspired intellectual James Baldwin jazz Jean July Langston Hughes later Latin Quarter Léopold Senghor literary live magazine Maran Marseilles McKay's Melvin musicians negritude never Noir novel novelist painter Paris Parisian play poems poet poetry political Press published race racial racism Richard Wright Riviera Séjour Senghor Smith soldiers stay story streets summer surrealist Ted Joans tion took Toomer tourists translated trip United University visitors W. E. B. Du Bois wanted white American William William Gardner Smith wrote Yale York