From Josephine Baker and James Baldwin to André Leon Talley and today’s artists, Paris has long drawn queer African Americans seeking freedom, visibility, and creative possibility. In this interactive lecture, novelist and current American Library Visiting Fellow Rasheed Newson examines how queer Black Americans have been perceived and received in France, and why so many have chosen expatriate life in the City of Lights. Blending history, visual media, and cultural analysis, Newson interrogates Paris as a refuge—and the limits of that promise.
About the speaker:
Rasheed Newson is the author of the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me. The novel was a Lambda Literary finalist for Gay Fiction and was named one of the “100 Notable Books of 2022” by the New York Times. His forthcoming novel, There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood, is slated for publication by Flatiron in 2026. Rasheed is also a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner. Along with his screenplay writing partner, T.J. Brady, Newson co-developed and is an executive producer of Bel-Air. At the Library, Newson will be conducting research for a novel about the experience of a gay, African-American, male runway model with a dark complexion, who becomes a brief international sensation during Paris Fashion Week in 1992.
