Fearless and Free

The autobiography of the fabulous, rule-breaking, one-of-a-kind Josephine Baker, published in English for the first time.

This is the iconic Josephine Baker in her own words.

Funny, candid, and unconventional—the wildly famous but elusive Josephine Baker tells her own story in this enchanting memoir. Baker took Paris by storm in the 1920s, dazzling audiences with her humour, beauty, and effervescence on stage. She became an icon. Hemingway, Jean Cocteau, and Picasso admired her; Shirley Bassey adored her. It was told she strolled the streets of Paris with her pet cheetah who wore a diamond collar.

Later, as one of the most recognisable women in the world, she became a spy for the French resistance, her celebrity working as her cover. She was awarded the Legion d'Honneur for military service. After the war, she became increasingly interested in civil rights. In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King. All this from a girl born in Missouri to a poor single black woman and a white father she did not know.

Formed from a series of conversations with the French journalist Marcel Sauvage, over a period of more than twenty years, and now translated into English for the first time, this gorgeous book offers an insight into one of the most beguiling figures of the twentieth century.

'The most sensational woman anyone ever saw' Ernest Hemingway

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY IJEOMA OLUO

TRANSLATED BY ANAM ZAFAR AND SOPHIE LEWIS