Paris Interzone

by James Campbell

"When on August 25th, 1944, the Allied forces marched into Paris and freed the city from the German Occupation, they prepared the way for another invasion --- a new wave of writers... Taking Richard Wright's arrival in Paris [in May 1946] as his staring point, James Campbell has produced a riveting account of this post-war period." --- Time Out

PARIS INTERZONE offers striking views of the Paris literary scene from the end of the Second World War to the early 1960s.

305 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 1994

About the author

James Campbell is a Scottish writer. He left school at the age of fifteen to become an apprentice printer. After hitchhiking through Europe, Israel and North Africa, he studied to gain acceptance to the University of Edinburgh (1974–78). On graduating, he immediately became editor of the New Edinburgh Review (1978–82). His first book, Invisible Country: A Journey Through Scotland, was published in 1984. Two years later, Campbell published Gate Fever, “based on a year’s acquaintance with the prisoners and staff of Lewes Prison’s C Wing”.

Campbell's other books include Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin (1991, 2021), Paris Interzone (1994), Just Go Down to the Road: A Memoir of Trouble and Travel (2022). He worked for many years at the Times Literary Supplement and wrote the column 'J.C.' A collection of these appeared as NB by J.C.: A Walk Through the Times Literary Supplement in 2023.

Reviews

[Jay Green]

Enjoyable and informative but could have been more enjoyable and more informative. I would have liked more anecdotes, more Burroughs. The focus on Richard Wright and James Baldwin feels like a by-product of the author’s own interests, as revealed by his other works.

[Tim]

I'd had this lying around for a few years - I don't remember exactly when or specifically why I bought it, though many of its subjects are of interest to me. I never felt like reading it, including when I finally picked it up from my huge bookcasefull of unread books I own, to give it a try.
It was really good - it's written well, the author can tell a story without putting himself in the way (unlike a lot of his subjects), he comments intelligently but unobtrusively, and he has produced a neat and clear narration of the overlapping stories of the many, mostly much mythologised, folk who form his collective subject. These are the American, French and British writers and publishers of the post-war Paris "left bank" crowd, including most notably Richard Wright (to start with the one whom I was completely unaware of), Beckett, James Baldwin, Maurice Girodias, Sartre, Boris Vian, Nabokov, 'Pauline Reage', Alexander Trocchi, JP Donleavy, Chester Himes, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer and William Burroughs: literary, sexual and political pioneers, chancers, miseries, egomaniacs, junkies and all-rounders (Vian being my personal favourite).
It doesn't, to my mind, fall into the trap of romanticising what would undoubtedly make a terrible Hollywood movie; I mean there is much passion, much paranoia, much backstabbing, poverty, tragedy, real and/or imagined persecution by French and US authorities, rivalry, and of course good old sex, but it's not played for cheap thrills nor with exaggerated idealisation of the protagonists, many of whom are or have been deities of literature.
Looking for a downside, well, it isn't a book that is likely to radically change your life (you can't go and live in 1950s Saint-Germain-des-Pres, and its 21st century continuation won't be the same at all).

[Mark Phillips]

Straightforward literary history of Paris from 1946-1960, concentrating on the black expatriate community centering around Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Chester Himes, to the Beats centering around Ginsburg and Burroughs. In the middle is an extended history of the Olympia Press detailing Maurice Girodias' career as publisher of low pornography and high literature. I got a lot of information that tied up with other research I've done lately into both the Beats and Chester Himes. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't even a mention of the artist Walter Coleman—I needed some background on him for my story. This is the type of book that encourages deeper research—it's an amuse-bouche rather than a hearty meal. The author's voice is entertaining even when it slides across the line into pretentiousness. I get the feeling that he and Norman Mailer would've gotten along very well.

[Tosh]

James Campbell's great history of the Post-War years in Literary Paris. Especially focusing on the important Black American writers that came to Paris after the war. And how that influence affected writers and visionaries like Boris Vian and the entire Saint-Germain crowd.