Why and how did he not see this coming ? That's the question Eddy L. Harris asks himself in the year of his 60th birthday and Trump's election, the day he suddenly realizes in front of an inane game TV show that his native country doesn't match to the image he had of it up until then. Since childhood, he has swallowed the lies served up by teachers, political leaders and preachers of all stripes... He and the majority of Americans have believed in an idyllic image of their country, without realizing that they were being manipulated. So Eddy decided to revisit the history of the United States and his own, to retrace the road paved with bad intentions that led him far from home and enabled Trump to seize power. Along the way, he measures the extent of this great illusion.
Eddy L. Harris is the author of six books, including Native Stranger (Vintage, 1992) and Still Life in Harlem (Holt, 1996), both selected as “Notable Books” of the year by the New York Times. He is the writer, producer, and subject of the new documentary film River to the Heart. Currently he is writing an accompanying book as well as an exploration of race in Eastern Europe. He lives in the village of Pranzac, France. *************** Poussé par son père, il fait des études dans un collège blanc catholique, premier pas vers la Stanford University. À 30 ans, il décide de descendre le Mississipi en canoë et fait du récit de cette expérience la matière de son premier livre, A Mississipi Solo (1988). Native Stranger (1992) raconte le voyage d’un Blackamerican au coeur de l’Afrique. Southern Haunted Dream (1993) naît de sa traversée du Sud des Etats-Unis à moto, sur les traces de Amérique de l’esclavage et du racisme quotidien. Still life in Harlem, qui paraît en 1996 (Harlem en traduction française, Liana Levi, 2000), mêle portraits et réflexions au cours des deux années qu’il a choisi de vivre au coeur de ce quartier new-yorkais symbole de l’espérance noire, passée et présente. Jupiter et moi (Liana Levi, 2005), est une évocation de la figure paternelle.
Aujourd’hui, Eddy L. Harris a quitté Harlem et élu domicile en France (à Paris puis aujourd’hui en Poitou-Charentes), tout en voyageant régulièrement à travers les États-Unis.