Black Girl in Paris Coming to the Big Screen

Shay Youngblood's novel Black Girl in Paris (2000, Riverhead Books) is coming to the big screen.

Image from ShayYoungblood.com

The book presents the story of Eden Daniel, a young woman who journeys to Paris as part of her voyage to find herself.  Here's a description from the Reading Guide on Youngblood's Web site:

Black Girl in Paris wends its way around the mythology of Paris as a city that called out to African-American artists. Like James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Josephine Baker before her, Youngblood’s heroine leaves 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.

Twelve years later, the tale is being filmed in the streets of Paris.  Tracey Heggins of Medicine for Melancholy plays the role of Eden.  To view still shots of various movie sets, click here.  

The projected release date for the film is 2013.

Shay Youngblood is a novelist, short-story writer, playwright, artist, and professor.

Shay Youngblood and Patricia Laplante-Collins

Photo courtesy of Patricia Laplante-Collins, Paris Soirées

************

Entrée to Black Paris!™ is a Discover Paris! blog.
We are proud to have been selected as one of 10 BEST Paris blogs!

If you liked this article, share it with your friends and colleagues by clicking on one or more of the social media buttons below!

Remembering Janet McDonald

I considered publishing this posting on the anniversary of Janet’s passing, but thought that it would be more appropriate to publish it during Women’s History Month – a time when women’s stories garner more attention and when we collectively celebrate womanhood.


************
On April 11, 2007, the world lost a prolific writer and extraordinary person. Janet McDonald, an award-winning contemporary American author and Paris resident, succumbed to colon cancer at the age of 53.

I first met Janet at the American Library on May 29, 1996. She had been invited to participate in an event called “Writers at Work: from Manuscript to Bookstore” for writers who were visiting or living in France. Participants read from their books, discussed their works, and recalled the challenges of becoming a published author. The program described Janet as follows:

Janet McDonald, international corporate lawyer, has a contract with Farrar-Strauss to publish her memoirs, “a sort of Tree Grows in Brooklyn”.

That memoir would be called Project Girl (1999), and it went on to be named Los Angeles Times Best Book of 1999. Raw and insightful, it poignantly tells the tale of Janet’s lifelong struggle to reconcile her upbringing in a New York City ghetto with the brilliance that gained her entry into another world – that of Vassar, Columbia University, Cornell, and NYU Law Schools and beyond. The opening chapter of the book quickly sets the tone for what is to come when Janet describes herself as a college-bound project girl as much drawn to books as she was tempted by violence.

After Project Girl, Janet went on to write six novels for young adults. She reached out to this audience from the vantage point of the “derailed” adolescence that she describes in Project Girl, and did so with great purpose and success. Spellbound (2001) was selected as the American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults and Chill Wind (2002) won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award. Janet’s last novel, Off-color, was published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux in October 2007. Four of her books have been translated into French.

During my few encounters with Janet, I found her to be quick-witted, eclectic, and yet awkwardly shy. After reading Project Girl, I felt that my initial perception of her was correct. However, I learned that the awkwardness that I had noted was a manifestation of her struggle to find her place in society. Here was a woman who was at once a Mensa member and reformed drug abuser, journalist and rape victim, reformed arsonist and corporate attorney. Her life had been an incredible series of crashing defeats and phoenix-like risings. I stood humbled by her resilience and her ability to maintain a sense of humor.

In Project Girl, Janet describes the Paris that she knew when she first arrived in France and the city that she came to know as an attorney at a French law firm. She offers a unique perspective on life in the City of Light. Following the success of the book, I approached her about writing a literary walk based upon her places of residence and preferred haunts. The project was never completed, but I have resurrected my notes. Among her favorite activities were going to the movies, roller skating, and playing Frisbee. She described her “once and future favorite spot” in Paris as the Eiffel Tower. For her, it was THE symbol of the place where she was finally happy…where she was home.

************

Entrée to Black Paris!™ is a Discover Paris! blog.