Baldwin, Styron and Me

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

An unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity, race, and censorship.

In 1961, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styrons guest house. They wrote during the day, then spent long evenings confiding in each other and talking about race and identity in America. During one of those memorable evenings, Baldwin is said to have convinced Styron to write, in the first person, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner near Styrons own Southern birthplace. Styron followed his friends advice, and The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968also creating outrage in part of the African American community.

More than sixty years later, the debates and controversy around cultural appropriation, identity, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonate. In Baldwin, Styron and Me, Mlikah Abdelmoumen considers Baldwin and Styrons surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman, born in Canada to a Tunisian father and Qubcois mother, and torn by the often unidimensional versions of her own identity put forth by todays politics, media, and society. Considering questions of identity, race, equity, and censorship, and, especially, the means by which public debate around these topics is increasingly radicalized, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listeneven in disagreement.

Reviews

Praise for Baldwin, Styron and Me

A truly relevant essay from one of the greatest Quebec thinkers of our time, who reflects on both the question of cultural appropriation and artistic freedom with great singularity and refreshing freedom.
Radio-Canada

In this rich and fascinating essay, Mlikah Abdelmoumen criticizes aggressive radicalism, advocating instead dialogue and empathy. With the help of Baldwin and Styron, the author allows us to see that dialogue is not only possible, but necessary.
La Gazette de la Mauricie

Author Bio

Mlikah Abdelmoumen was born in Quebec in 1972. Between 2005 and 2017 she lived in Lyon, France. She holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Montreal and is the author of many articles and short stories, as well as a dozen novels, nonfiction books and essays, among which Les dsastres (VLB diteur, 2013) and Douze ans en France (2018). Baldwin, Styron et moi won the 2022 Pierre-Vadeboncoeur Essay Prize. She is editor in chief of the Quebec literary magazine Lettres qubcoises. Baldwin, Styron and Me is the first of her books to be translated to English.

Catherine Khordoc is a translator and professor in the Department of French and the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.