Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Black Girl in Paris
    Black Girl in Paris
    Black Girl in Paris
    Ebook227 pages4 hours

    Black Girl in Paris

    By Shay Youngblood

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Black Girl in Paris wends its way around the mythology of Paris as a city that has called out to African-American artists. Like James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Josephine Baker before her, Youngblood's heroine leaves her home, in the American South, nurturing a dream of finding artistic emancipation in the City of Light. She experiments freely, inhabiting different incarnations - artist's model, poet's helper, au pair, teacher, thief, and lover - to keep body and soul together, to stay afloat, heal the wounds of her broken heart, discover her sexual self, and, finally, to wrestle her dreams of becoming a writer into reality.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShay Youngblood
    Release dateJan 22, 2013
    ISBN9781301349906
    Black Girl in Paris
    Author

    Shay Youngblood

    Shay Youngblood is author of the novels Black Girl in Paris, Winter Prophet, a graphic novel, Black Power Barbie and a collection of short fiction, The Big Mama Stories. Her plays, Amazing Grace, Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery, and Talking Bones (Dramatic Publishing Company), have been widely produced. Her other plays include Flying Blind, Square Blues and Communism Killed My Dog. An Edward Albee honoree, and the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Pushcart Prize for fiction, a Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, several NAACP Theater Awards, and an Astraea Writers' Award for fiction, Ms. Youngblood graduated from Clark-Atlanta University and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University. She has worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in the eastern Caribbean, as an au pair, artist's model, and poet's helper in Paris, and as a creative writing instructor in a Rhode Island women's prison. She was a 2011 Japan U.S. Friendship Commission, Creative Artist Fellow. Currently she is a writer in residence at the Dallas Museum of Art. "My interest in architecture has been fueled by my travels. I have lived on the East Coast, in the Deep South, Japan, Hawaii, France, Spain and the Caribbean, traveled to Australia, Canada, Mexico, Sweden and Denmark and once took a three month road trip across the United States. I have a particular weakness for shoes and my guilty pleasures are spa vacations and 72 hour reading orgies. I will try almost any cuisine or any activity once, more if I like it. My art practice includes writing and painting, sometimes I combine the two. Among my creative goals are collaborations with a composer on an opera, an illustrator on a graphic novel and to develop an interdisciplinary work for the theater that integrates video animation."

    Read more from Shay Youngblood

    Related to Black Girl in Paris

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for Black Girl in Paris

    4/5

    2 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I am a senior citizen, female, white, and I truly enjoyed reading this novel. Youngblood draws a portrait of a young American black woman, Eden, who leaves the security of her family and life in the South to find icreative inspiration from James Baldwin in Paris. Her friendships, romantic relationships, jobs, escapades, are fun, poignant, and at times a little shocking, but the young Eden must be admired for her bravery and determination, as well as for her ability to have empathy for others.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      It's not too often that I read a book that I can't put down. In reference to this book, that was exactly the case.Although this is the author's first work, I found myself unable to stop reading because of the way in which she writes.I feel that this book is great because it allows the reader to be exposed to various personalities of the main character. When I first saw the title of this book, I'll admit, I was somewhat offended.I didn't know why I felt that way, it just seemed like the term "black" was somewhat degrading to say the least.However, once I began reading the book, I realized that this was not so, and that the title was based on not her own view of herself but how others saw her. Throughout the course of the book, the main character Eden takes on various different roles and we as the reader are given an opportunity to see how she deals with each role with dignity.Even when she is a thief, she still makes the reader feel for her as well as her situation. I believe that this is a great book for anyone to read, whether they are black, white, or any other color.Not only will people be able to relate with the experience of being a stranger in a strange land, but also, they will get a glimpse into the soul of a person.

      2 people found this helpful

    Book preview

    Black Girl in Paris - Shay Youngblood

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1