First of all, I loved all the details M. Sauvage provided about the ghostwriting experience: he interviewed Josephine over a couple of decades, having trouble keeping her on track, bothering to remember the past, and answering the questions he needed to answer, as with all ghostwriters! She directly addresses him in some passages, and some go from the first person into the third person as he presumably resorts to filling in the gaps.

While it's set out pretty well chronologically, it is impressionistic more than filled with facts: and what an impression it gives, of a lively, strong woman who ploughed her own furrow at a time when women, let alone Black women, were not commonly doing that, and who went from dancing in a string of bananas to spying for the French in the Second World War, as well as enduring a series of awful operations. She collects animals wherever she goes and does mislay them but there aren't any dreadful scenes with them. She also collects admirers and fans, from high-level army personnel to ordinary soldiers and people on the street. I loved the scene where she was entertaining the troops in Morocco when there's a dive-bombing attack from the German - she's flat on her stomach and pragmatically eating a sandwich when a soldier crawls towards her in the dark, bearing ... an ice cream!

The book was published originally in 1949 and there's a Foreword by Ijeoma Oluo which adds to the publisher's note by providing context around White supremacy and divide and conquer strategies on some difficult passages which display strong anti-Semitic attitudes (this section is near the back and could be fairly easily skipped if wished), as well as enthusing about the respect Black creatives receive in Paris, both now and in Josephine's time. Oluo ends with the hope that Josephine came to see more nuance in the situation between landlords and tenants in New York which sparked this section. At the end of the book, we have a note by one of Josephine's many adopted children, Jean-Claude and a translator's note, so this fascinating documentation of a fascinating woman is put fully into its context. Well worth reading.

My blog review: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/02/20/book-review-josephine-baker-fearless-and-free/

I was sent an advance proof copy of Fearless and Free by Josephine Baker to read and review by NetGalley. I was very aware of Josephine Baker as I was growing up in the 60s but I didn’t know anything about her life. This memoir using her own (translated) words are a revelation. Her story is really interesting and actually quite amazing. She is very inspiring – not just to young black women as you would expect, but to the whole human race. She was so humble and caring, carrying no truck with discrimination of any kind. Perhaps this memoir should be added to the curriculum in schools and colleges everywhere.

This book is a series of interviews with Josephine Baker and I was excited to read it as she had such an interesting life.
I felt this format didn't quite work for me though. Whilst it was great to hear her voice through the pages it was hard without any context to what she was saying. So much time has passed It's difficult for a reader today to know the places, famous names and so on. I found myself skimming it in places.
The more interesting bits such as segregation in the US and her WW2 French spy years lacked the depth I would've liked and I didn't feel I got a sense of what she was actually doing.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I last encountered Josephine Baker in my reading in Damien Lewis’ “The Flame Of Resistance” (2022). This was a fascinating account of dancer, chanteuse, actress, activist Baker’s war work, the extent and significance of which has taken decades to be uncovered. I described it as "a tale of extraordinary missions, invisible ink, microdots, secreted documents alongside her desire for peace and uncompromising insistence on equality.” I acknowledged that I felt I needed to read a general biography to “flesh out her many other achievements and to provide a greater context for these activities."
This newly translated book (by Anam Zafir and Sophie Lewis) goes one better as it is, to all intents and purposes, an autobiography. First published in 1949 this marks the first English translation of Baker’s words as revealed in interviews with Marcel Sauvage (1895-1988), a French novelist, poet, journalist, essayist and short-story writer in a process which took over 20 years. In an Introduction which is all over the place and a little bewildering to read before the main text Sauvage describes his approach as "reportage”- an exploration of moments, impressions and images. This can be frustrating at times but it does allow the voice of Josephine Baker and elements of her personality, to shine through. It’s frothy and bubbly, good humoured, occasionally gushing but her insistence on equality is strong as is her optimism.
It’s certainly an unpredictable read, some things feel decidedly glossed over, her war work is presented with great discretion which is understandable given the proximity to the end of the war. 1949 is also before she began adopting children from different backgrounds, what she referred to as her “Rainbow Tribe”. She is strong on responses to her at the height of her fame. Touring away from her beloved France in the late 1920s she recounts tales of adulation, riots, outrage from those who believed she was an incarnation of the Devil whilst others clamoured to see her perform. I was also totally gripped by the sections following the war when she revisits America, believing that what everyone had been through during these years would have made a more tolerant country who would embrace equality more only to find that nothing had changed, not in “liberal” New York nor especially on a visit down South to reconnect with her St. Louis upbringing.
Her perspectives on this time leads to comments about dynamics between Black and Jewish communities in Harlem which does make uncomfortable reading and is addressed by Ijeoma Oluo in her Foreword. It feels right to keep these passages within the text and for there to be some guidance for us to see the context which caused Josephine Baker to come to these conclusions.
In lighter sections, where her love of life, of dancing, of children, of animals, bubbles along there’s unpredictability too. I certainly wasn’t expecting recipes from the woman dubbed “The Black Venus”.
It is probably this bombardment of ideas and memories in this free-flowing manner which has prevented this being available in English before now but with Baker’s star still very much on the rise (she was awarded the highest national honour in France when her body was admitted to the Pantheon Mausoleum in 2021, an event celebrated by Jean Claude Bouillon Baker in the Afterword and Ijeoma Oluo registers surprise, as a visiting American, by the evidence of love for her in contemporary Paris) I feel the rest of Europe and her homeland still under-appreciate the importance of Josephine Baker and her story. The arrival of this book in English, as a commemoration of 50 years since her death, may go some way to put this right.
Fearless And Free is published by Vintage Classics on 6th February 2025. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Dancer. Singer. Actress. Spy. Heroine. Icon. Inspiration. Performer. Brave. Diva. Fighter.
All these descriptions and more could apply to Josephine Baker, the dancer who left her home in St Louis in the US to set sail for the glittering delights of Paris in 1920. Already successful in her home country, the welcoming arms of France were just too seductive to ignore.
She was born into a poor family and was already working aged 8 in 1914. As a child she had a toy theatre and so it would seem that the stage was her destiny.
Josephine danced semi-nude in a tiny skirt embellished with artificial bananas or feathers and is believed to have introduced the Charleston to Paris. It was the Jazz Age and black performers were all the rage in the city at that time as the Art Deco movement began to take hold.
She was incredibly successful and during 1928 – 1930 she toured her act in 25 countries enduring racism and outraged supporters of moral decency. She was described as ‘primitive’ and performed for the Danish Royal Family. Along the way she was denounced as ‘moral decadence threatening the great country of Austria’ and a Father Frey considered that ‘she represented Lust itself.’ Josephine described herself as ‘the black demon, the heretic incarnate.’ She wasn’t allowed to perform in Munich as they considered that ‘she was the very definition of immorality.’
Josephine appeared in silent films and ‘talkies’, took up signing and looked after 12 children at her French chateau. During the Second World War she was involved in intelligence work and. as a result, was awarded the Cross of Lorraine by General De Gaulle himself. She later sold it for 350,000 francs to fund the French Resistance. She sang in death camps surrounded by the dying and suffered serious bouts of ill health such as septicaemia and peritonitis.
After the war she married a fellow musician called Jo Bouillon in 1945 and they experienced racism as a mixed race couple which she relates in the book. ‘No Jews, no dogs, no niggers.’
She died in 1975 aged 68 and was buried in Monaco. 20,000 mourners came to the funeral to pay their respects and she was the only American born woman to receive full military honours. Josephine was further honoured by having a symbolic casket containing soil from the various locations where she had lived interred in the Pantheon in Paris and becoming the sixth woman to do so. Shirley Bassey has cited her as an inspiration.
What an amazing life! And how wonderful to read about someone who has actually done something and much more than most people. The book is told in a series of interviews between Josephine Baker and Marcel Sauvage and the tone is light, chatty and conversational which belies the events that she is describing. It’s her memories that she is talking about so sometimes they are not in chronological order.
To my shame, I didn’t know that much about her apart from seeing black and white film clips and photos of her dancing in her banana skirt and being featured in the V & A’s Diva exhibition last year.
By the end of this book I was in awe of this woman who resolutely sailed her own boat, was adored and honoured by the country who adopted her and repaid the favour. But she had so many talents which she put to good use when she was involved in intelligence in the last World War. I read on in disbelief at the overt racism that she experience when she and her white husband travelled to New York.
I’m not sure if this is the definitive biography of this amazing lady but it did inspire me to find out more about her.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

A wonderful read. There were many autobiography was fascinating. Josephine Baker was an icon of her time. Her life story was easy to read because you felt as if she was talking you through situations as she recollected them…not always in chronological order.

A black entertainer or a time of immense prejudices. She was from a poor black family in America and moved to France where she became a French Citizen. Thr story takes you through many challenging times both personally and during the war.. Josephine had an absolutely fascinating life, many troubled, it was thought provoking but Josephine brought great humour too.

Excellent and a definite “must read” book.

Josephine Baker was an icon, and this collection of her thoughts and recollections of her days gone by, told in pure raconteur style, had me totally engaged. It is not a chronological history, it doesn't give you the biographical details you might expect, but what this book does is give you stories, insights into French culture at a certain period in history. You can hear the jazz, smell the cafe culture, the vino, and feel yourself becoming a fly on the wall to these great moments. A wonderful read.

I didn't really know much about Josephine Baker, so I was pleased to be given the opportunity to read this book. She really was a fascinating character,and I would love to read a biography about her. This one is a memoir; she dictated it over a period of time to a journalist, and so it feels more like a conversation than anything else, this makes it a bit uneven in places. It often felt quite lacking, particularly the later chapter that dealt with WW2. I was really looking forward to learning more about her war work, but I didn't really feel that I had learnt anything much about it.

I am really pleased to have read it, and I would recommend anyone with any interest in her to do so, but I think it would work better along side a biography, which would give more detail.

*Many thanks to Netgally and the publishers for a copy in exchange for an honest opinion.*

'Life, when you think about it later, is a series of images that surprise you, as if they were someone else, often; a film in your heart, in your head'.

Born in 1906, into extreme poverty, in Missouri, to a single mother, Josephine Baker somehow managed to leave her circumstances, leave the United States, and become an iconoclastic icon not only in dancing but also singing and acting. Touring throughout Europe during the roaring 20s, in that brief hiatus between world wars, she hit headlines by dancing in a skirt made simply from bananas - accented by a string of pearls around her neck. Despite encountering protests in some cities, by those outraged by her 'immoral' performance, she consistently managed to win people over. She became a sensation. But, just when you think of her as only an outrageous entertainer, WW2 breaks out and she ends up working for French Intelligence and is awarded a medal for her efforts. Oh, and in 1963, she spoke at the March of Freedom with Martin Luther King Jnr. What a lot of life packed into 68 years, 'That's how I live, randomly. I don't rehearse, like a machine. I'm not a machine. And randomness is more beautiful than a machine, I know that.'

'Fearless and Free' is less of a memoir and more like a series of memories. Over the course of 20 years, Josephine told her stories to French journalist, Marcel Sauvage. These vignettes have been thematically arranged in order to establish some type of cohesion but in all honesty, it still makes for erratic reading. However, that was her in all her eccentric glory. The benefit of this untraditional memoir is that you really get a feel for her voice - her personality. The interviews come across as completely candid, not only about her life events but also her observations about other cultures and people.

Such an interesting dive into a remarkable woman's life. Truly unique.

'An exemplary life of triple resilience - female, black and poor - she independently refutes the fatalism that oppresses, confines and imprisons willpower within old woes'.

A memoir from a remarkable woman. The book reads as a series of impressions experienced as she rose from an impoverished background to be a celebrated success. It is an honest, genuine, chatty memoir that makes light of her achievements but delights in the anecdotal and memorable detail that occur in a life. She is self effacing but acted with genuine courage in WW2 and after when travelling through USA. She tells it as it is and lets events speak for themselves. When dealing with discrimination in USA, this becomes shocking and is a telling indictment on the prejudices that denigrate people of colour. This made the book a worthwhile read.

It's a pity the word 'icon' has been so determinedly stripped of all meaning; describing Josephine Baker as simply a dancer feels like taking the piss, but equally, she never gives the impression here of being quite happy with her singing or acting, and certainly not in the recorded form which is all that remains to us now. Or at least, all bar what could be captured in words, including her own, taken down here by the journalist Marcel Sauvage. Who's a more substantial presence than many modern ghosts, often directly addressed by his subject, very occasionally even adding a note of his own – which I think I find more honest than the pretence of ventriloquism. Of course, he may be finessing what she said to him; I can say that she comes across in a way that fits perfectly with what I already knew of her, but perhaps that's simply because his mythography has been so influential over the decades? Whichever: the Josephine Baker here is a fabulous, exhausting personality, scandalising and fascinating Europe between the wars, magnetic focus of a culture war long before they were called that. If she can sometimes come recall a Miss World contestant in her uncomplicated enthusiasm for animals, love and people just getting along, it's never long before you're reminded that she was happier than most to live up to those sentiments when things got tough, running messages for the Resistance despite failing health, and going up against the vile reality of postwar American racism (brutally open in the South, more insidious up North) when she could easily have stayed away. She's also clear-sighted about the storms around her, and mostly about the arts and the wider world – which is not to say there aren't occasional lapses, from her scepticism of talkies to a section on Harlem's Jewish landlords and managers for which the modern introduction quite understandably feels obliged to apologise. And then mixed in with all of that, you also get recipes and beauty tips; I was just thinking that the simplicity of the latter seemed ripe for a new TikTok trend when we got on to the bit about finding a fat rattlesnake and skinning it alive and yeah, OK, perhaps not. The jumping from topic to topic and general sense of fizzing energy did mean this wasn't a book I could have sat and read straight through; I know amateur, remote diagnoses are frowned upon, but it's tied with Kieran Culkin interviews for times when I have thought 'Even compared to the people I hang around with, this person seems incredibly ADHD'. But taken in small doses, it really gets across how remarkable she was in a way memoirs don't always manage, even if it also serves as a reminder of how often humanity as a whole seems determined to repeat the same stupid conflicts.

(Netgalley ARC)

3.5 rounded up

Josephine Baker 1906 - 1975
In this memoir, Josephine Baker spoke to French journalist Marcel Sauvage, giving him a series of interviews about her life up to 1949.
Who was Josephine Baker? She was born in 1906 in St. Louis Missouri, a mixed race girl who left the city of her birth and travelled to New York to work in theatres and as a teenager made her way to Paris. Here she became a famous dancer, famed for her banana dress in the Danse Sauvage, a jazz singer and an actress. She was beautiful, unforgettable, enigmatic, hugely gifted, an animal lover, a philanthropist, an activist, a World War II spy who became world renowned.

I knew of Josephine Baker but didn’t know a lot about her until last year when I read Codename Butterfly by Embassie Susberry which piqued my interest to want to read this memoir. The introduction gave really good context to the interviews, to the bigotry and bias that she and many others faced but it also stressed Baker’s humanity, her humour, her heartache, her bravery, as well as her outrage at injustice. This definitely came through loud and clear in the interviews. However, they are non-linear and a bit confusing at times, especially as the interviews and letters she received ran into one another somewhat randomly. However, it’s also true to say that her warmth, her sense of fun and that generosity of spirit definitely shine through. As a consequence, I understand her better, the hardships of growing up in St. Louis, the difficulties of establishing herself as a black artist in New York and the freedom that she felt in France. There was a great deal of her speaking about her performances around the world and how she was received there and it became a bit one dimensional, almost like a stream of consciousness, perhaps this was inevitable. It did however, give me an appreciation of the direction that her career took and why. Her travels in America especially south of the Mason Dixon line even as an established star were very revealing and obviously alarming.

As the interviews only went up to 1949 there’s obviously nothing about her involvement in the civil rights movement, but gaps can easily be filled by further research and I’m interested and fascinated enough in her to want to do exactly that.

Overall, she had a truly fascinating life. A black star given the honour of induction and immortality in the Panthéon Mausoleum in Paris in November 2021 where she lies alongside other great French people. It was really good to hear her voice through these interviews and it’s a good place to start further research of one of the most interesting people of the 20th century.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Random House UK, Vintage for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

It's important to know that this is a memoir rather than an autobiography, and that it's formed from a series of conversations that Baker had with a French journalist: as such, it's chatty, it's uneven. and it's a fairly on the surface account of an amazing woman and her amazing life.

Born at the start of the twentieth century Baker is phenomenal: she's a dancer, a performer, and a movie star; she works for the French Resistance during WW2, and she's part of the Civil Rights movement. She is outspoken about racism and her forceful approach to standing up against injustices.

Nevertheless, I never felt that I really got to grips with Baker: for example, she talks about how she made the decision, as a sixteen year old to just leave her family and go on the stage; she describes how she simply haunted a producer till he agreed to let her join his show; from there, someone comes along and pays her a massive salary just to get her to join their company. There just seems so much that is unspoken about how that all happened in an America which she has described as openly racist.

So this definitely gives a feel for Baker's voice and an outline of what was an incredible life - I just wanted more of everything: more details, more thoughtful contemplation, more body to everything that we're told here. Added to a fuller biography this would make a fantastic companion piece but as a standalone, I felt it just skims the surface of a fascinating life.

What a great read about the extraordinary life of Josephine Baker. Very interesting and informative read about her incredible life and all of her accomplishments