Me and My House

"Zaborowska's readings into Baldwin's work are thoughtful and illuminating. An opinionated and passionate book on one of the 20th century's most important writers." * Kirkus Reviews * "Zaborowska takes you on an intricate journey in which she explores the central theme of home and what this means in terms of identity and belonging. . . . This book contains vast details of Baldwins life in France full of stunning photographs and beautifully illustrated, it draws on interviews with those closest to him and unpublished letters and works. It dissects, analyses and tries to understand the life lived by Baldwin, particularly how the relationship between social space and architecture is linked to race. It enables readers to reassess the richness and complexity of his writing and gives them an opportunity to understand the man behind the work. . . ." -- Kalwant Bhopal * Times Higher Education * "Relying on extensive interviews with Baldwins friends and lovers, manuscripts, and unpublished letters, Zaborowska introduces new insights into the writers life and work. Me And My House is an essential read for both serious students and scholars, but also fans wishing to know more about the life and motivations of this iconic master." * The Advocate * " [An] extremely sensitive, thorough and well-informed appraisal of Baldwins final French sojourn by one of the leading scholars of the writers work and life." -- Claudine Raynaud * European Journal of American Culture * Zaborowska describes in full, rich detail the actual home that Baldwin established in the south of France, recreating its physical qualities and also the extraordinary community he assembled there. . . . The image of Baldwin that emerges from this book is therefore quite different from the isolated stranger that previous studies have established. -- Robert Butler * African American Review *

Magdalena J. Zaborowska is Professor of Afroamerican and American Studies and the John Rich Faculty Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan, and the author and coeditor of several books, including James Baldwin's Turkish Decade: Erotics of Exile, also published by Duke University Press, and How We Found America: Reading Gender through East European Immigrant Narratives.

Abbreviations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction. If I Am a Part of the American House, and I Am: Vitrines, Fragments, Reassembled Remnants 1 1. Foundations, Facades, and Faces: Through the Glass Blackly, or Domesticating Claustrophobic Terror 51 2. Home Matter: No House in the World, or Reading Transnational, Black Queer Domesticity in St. Paul-de-Vence 85 3. Life Material: Haunted Houses and Welcome Tables, or The First Teacher, the Last Play, and Affectations of Disidentification 145 4. Building Metaphors: "Sitting in the Strangest House I Have Ever Known," or Black Heterotopias from Harlem to San Juan, to Paris, London, and Yonkers 213 5. Black Matters of Value: Erasure, Overlay, Manipulation, or Archiving the Invisible House 295 Notes 317 Bibliography 351 Index 377