❤️ Couples ❤️
"the one real love story of my life"
James Baldwin was 25 in 1949 when he met 17 year old Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger in a little bar called La Reine Blanche in Paris. After carousing several more bars the pair spent the night in Baldwin's bed. Happersberger was 'curious' seeing a Black American in Paris, + was naïve on the prejudices white Americans + French held. "I came from little Switzerland. The color of the skin did not play any role.". Later Baldwin would say they would "meet late in the day at a cafe + pool what money we'd managed to raise + then we'd eat. We shared everything"
It was at Happersberger family chalet that Baldwin would write his first novel 'Go Tell It on the Mountain'. Happersberger, in charge of the domestic life while Baldwin worked, remembers the moment his novel was finished when he heard Jimmy punching out loudly the final six letters "THE END."
Eventually Lucien would marry + the couple's relationship turned to lifelong friendship. Happersberger was at Baldwin's side at his deathbed in 1987
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