In store now!The Stone Face by William Gardner Smith
Originally published in the early 1960s, when exposure for authors of colour was at a low ebb to say the least, William Gardner Smith’s underread classic has been rescued from obscurity in this beautiful New York Review of Books edition. Linked to the black social protest novels of Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright, The Stone Face tells the harrowing story of an American ex-patriot living in Paris through the days of Algerian resistance, culminating in an intense and violent outburst of governmental control. Standing as one of the only descriptions of the 1961 Paris massacre for over 30 years, Smith’s The Stone Face is both an essential perspective on a specific historical moment, as well as a timely reminder in our own times of the power of collective action, and the dangers of state sanctioned violence.
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The Stone Face by William Gardner Smith
Paperback £13.99
As a teenager, Simeon Brown lost an eye in a racist attack, and this young African American journalist has lived in his native Philadelphia in a state of agonizing tension ever since. After a violent encounter with white sailors, Simeon makes up his mind to move to Paris, known as a safe haven for black artists and intellectuals, and before long he is under the spell of the City of Light, where he can do as he likes and go where he pleases without fear. Through Babe, another black American émigré, he makes new friends, and soon he has fallen in love with a Polish actress who is a concentration camp survivor. At the same time, however, Simeon begins to suspect that Paris is hardly the racial wonderland he imagined: The French government is struggling to suppress the revolution in Algeria, and Algerians are regularly stopped and searched, beaten, and arrested by the French police, while much worse is to come, it will turn out, in response to the protest march of October 1961. Through his friendship with Hossein, an Algerian radical, Simeon realizes that he can no longer remain a passive spectator to French injustice. He must decide where his true loyalties lie.
Order your copy today directly from October Books or buy online through our bookshop store and we’ll get commission on your purchase.
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