James Baldwin Paris

James Baldwin Paris

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Baldwin in France

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Photo by Florence C. Ladd, June 1987
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of The Baldwin Family

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James Baldwin’s first experience living abroad was in Paris, France, where he relocated in 1948, in the hopes that a new place and time away would help him finish his first novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain (1953) and draft his famous collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son (link is external) (1955).
At the age of twenty-four, Baldwin arrived in Paris with only forty dollars in his pocket. He fell in love with the city, not only because of its beauty and culture but also because of the reprieve it provided from the racial and sexual discrimination he experienced in the United States. The space to be himself freed Baldwin creatively. It was here, and in Switzerland, that he completed much of the writing for Go Tell It On The Mountain . Beyond a place to work, Paris also provided Baldwin with inspiration and even models for his fictional characters. The city provides the backdrop for his second novel, Giovanni’s Room (1956).
Baldwin lived in a series of cheap hotels throughout Paris, many in the Saint-Germain area, a neighborhood filled with artists and authors during the 1940s and ‘50s. Here Baldwin found a place within a diverse community of creative types. The social scene of that neighborhood gave him a respite from the constant tension that living in the United States meant for someone like him. He often worked in the Café de Flore, where writing and socializing went hand-in-hand, and where he met famous French intellectuals like Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The bars and nightclubs allowed the effusive Baldwin to dance, sing, laugh, and explore his sexuality in a supportive environment.
The Village of St. Paul de Vence in the South of France.
Paris became Baldwin’s first international home, where he often returned for stays both long and short. But Paris was also the site of trouble. Shortly after relocating to France, Baldwin had a falling out with Richard Wright, his friend and mentor. Wright took personal offense to an essay Baldwin published in the French magazine, Zero , in 1949. In that essay, “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” (link is external) Baldwin argues against the protest novel genre, suggesting that it fails the reader as an honest, authentic literary form. He uses Wright’s Native Son (1940) as an example to illustrate his point and compares it to the sentimental, and by then infamous, anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom ’ s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Having made his career with works that focused more on social issues and less on nuances of individual characterization, Wright felt that Baldwin was personally attacking him. The pair had a shouting match on the streets of Paris, and their friendship never fully recovered. Baldwin wrote two more essays on his relationship with Wright; he regretted their parting of ways, but he did not change his opinion on Bigger Thomas, the main character of Wright’s Native Son .
Later, after Turkey, the South of France provided the writer with his last home—St. Paul de Vence, where he went to recuperate following depression and illness. His health had suffered in the aftermath of trauma following the assassinations of his activist friends: Medgar Evers in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.
Baldwin sits in his home in St. Paul de Vence in 1987.
Upon his arrival in 1971 in the small village in Provence, Baldwin was not well-received. Author Jules B. Farber documents the recollection of a friend of Baldwin’s: “At first people in St. Paul-de-Vence, all white Presbyterians, looked suspiciously at this little, ugly, black gay man who had come into their midst.” But within six months, the villagers began to gravitate toward his gregarious personality.
An interviewee, Betrand Mazodier recalled the admiration that soon developed:
Most of the villagers are simple people who only talk about their crops, vineyards, fruit trees, the weather and they like to drink. But Baldwin, with his openness, humor and disarming smile, quickly integrated into Saint-Paul life, admired and loved for the genuinely good person he was. We were always used to well-known people living here but most remained aloof and never sought any contact with the locals. Jimmy was the big exception. He actually went out of his way to talk to everyone he came across in town.
Further, Baldwin’s acquaintance with Simone Signoret, a famous French actress, helped him gain acceptance in the village. Two years prior to his arrival, the two had become friends, and she urged him to stay in St. Paul to recuperate, finding him room and board with an older woman named Mlle. Jeanne Faure, who feared having a black man boarding in her house. However, in time, she too, not only came to accept Baldwin but also, over the years, developed a deep and abiding affection for him. After renting multiple rooms in the house, Baldwin decided to purchase the sprawling eighteenth-century home, buying it piece by piece with proceeds from his publications.
Photograph of James Baldwin standing with the owner of his French home
Baldwin always felt the need to surround himself with people. As a result, he would soon become a welcomed visitor by the Roux family, who ran the nearby inn, La Colombe d’Or. Friends from the village, and even casual acquaintances he encountered during regular walks, joined him for meals and drinks at the inn. Dr. Roger Boizard became one of Baldwin’s “most trusted cronies,” and while he was the general practitioner responsible for handling the healthcare of everyone living in the Baldwin home for nearly ten years, he also became a dependable companion that shared meals and drinks with Baldwin several times a week.
Baldwin also grew close to villagers who had migrated to St. Paul de Vence as he had. These friends included French-American sculptor Armand Arman, born in St. Thomas Virgin Islands, and his wife Corice Canton; Wanda and Dick van Dijk from the Netherlands; and fellow author Nicholas Delbanco, originally from London.

James Baldwin and the Paris of the 1950s

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Last weekend, I found myself on the Pont Neuf in the centre of Paris. It was around 10AM on a Saturday morning in June. Normally, this area would be packed with people. People taking pictures of the river. People waiting to begin a walking tour of the Île de la Cité. This weekend, however, the Pont Neuf was eerily quiet. There were no tour groups. No people taking pictures. Just a few Parisians out for their morning jog. Travel restrictions may be lifting across Europe , but it is clear that it will be a long time before Paris is filled with visitors once more. Thankfully, there are countless books, movies, and television shows that are set in Paris to tide everyone over until that happens. This week, I’d like to highlight the works of James Baldwin, and in particular, his seminal novel, Giovanni’s Room .
James Baldwin was an incredibly influential writer, essayist, poet, and activist in the 20th century. His works focused on the intersection of race, class, and sexuality, and he was an important voice of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In fact, his collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son , is considered to be one of the most important non-fiction books of the 20th century. In 1948, Baldwin immigrated to Paris to escape the rampant racism of his home country, and he lived France on and off for the rest of his life. As a result, many of his works were influenced by his experiences in this country.
In addition to being a black American, James Baldwin was also a gay man. Incredibly, he was writing stories about gay and bisexual men decades before Stonewall and the modern gay rights movement began. In particular, Giovanni’s Room , published in 1956, is considered to be a classic of LGBTQ literature. It also happens to be one of my favourite books set in Paris.
Giovanni’s Room tells the story of an American expat who has a contentious love affair with a bartender he meets at a Parisian gay bar. The book is a hauntingly beautiful meditation on what it means to be a man, and an evocative depiction of the poisonous effects of shame on a person’s identity. The prose also exquisitely describes Paris in the 1950s. I may not be living in that particular time period, but this novel is the closest I’ve read to describing the essence of this city that I love so much.
Despite its progressive subject matter, Baldwin’s critics were quick to point out that this book features all white characters. When questioned on this, Baldwin replied that at that point in his journey as a writer, he was not ready to tackle both race and sexuality in the same book. Giovanni’s Room is about the later, but thankfully, Baldwin later gave us many more stories that address both. If you want to explore more of his works, I highly recommend If Beale Street Could Talk and the documentary film I Am Not Your Negro . Both are powerful indictments of the historical treatment of black Americans, and t
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James Baldwin Paris

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