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NYT Syndicate
From 1970 until his death in 1987, James Baldwin lived and wrote in a house with an idyllic garden in this medieval village on the C'f4te d'Azur, with the Alps at its back and the Mediterranean visible far below.
But those who arrive today to pay homage to Baldwin will not find anything commemorating that American novelist, playwright and essayist. No house museum greets them, or even a plaque with his name. The wing where Baldwin lived was torn down a few years ago. The remaining two houses on the property are in disrepair, the once-verdant garden unkempt. And the local real estate developer who now owns the property, after the Baldwin family lost control of it more than a decade ago, plans to build three apartment buildings and a swimming pool.
Heartsick at the prospect, a group started last year by an American novelist in Paris began a fundraising to buy the property, which is nearly 6 acres, and convert it into a writers' retreat dedicated to Baldwin. But the group does not have the blessing of the Baldwin family, some of whose members question its tactics and even its standing to champion the cause.
"To me the issue is very straightforward: It's about representation," said Aisha Karefa-Smart, a niece of Baldwin's."Who gets to represent James Baldwin's legacy and who gets to speak about who he was."
The interest in the house comes at a time when Baldwin, with his prescient insights into race relations in the United States, is having something of a posthumous revival, fuelled by the Black Lives Matter movement and the Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro.
Baldwin, who had lived in Paris earlier in his life, first came to Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1970, at the age of 46, after a breakdown. He had been excoriated by fellow members of the civil rights movement and believed he was under surveillance by the US government. In France, he found the tranquillity and distance to write.
At the time of his death from cancer, he had been buying the house in instalments from his landlady, Jeanne Faure, who grew up in Algeria under French colonial rule. Despite her right-wing politics, she and Baldwin had become the best of friends. (When President Fran?§ois Mitterrand of France made Baldwin a commander of the Legion of Honor in 1986, one of the country's highest honours, the author brought Faure to the ceremony.)
Friends of Baldwin in Saint-Paul recall that Faure was adamant that he have the house after her death. But a complex legal battle ensued among the Baldwin family, relatives of Faure and a woman who had worked as Faure's housekeeper. In 2007, a court ruled in favour of the former housekeeper, Josette Bazzini, who said that Faure had bequeathed her the house, according to Jules B Farber's book James Baldwin: Escape From America, Exile in Provence.
Shannon Cain, the American novelist leading the campaign to create the writer's retreat, said she was inspired to rescue the house after reading an opinion piece in Le Monde last March, France Must Save James Baldwin's House, by Thomas Chatterton Williams, a writer in Paris.
"I cannot believe I have the privilege to be alive at this moment on earth when James Baldwin's house is in danger and I happen to have the skills and temperament to do this work," Cain said.
But her efforts have upset the Baldwin estate and family members.
Karefa-Smart said that she and her relatives were offended by Cain's registration of a website without the family's permission and offering family members seats on the board of a group aimed at saving the house they had lost. Last year, the Baldwin estate threatened legal action for the group's registering a website using James Baldwin's name without permission. Gloria Karefa-Smart, Aisha's mother, is the sole executor of the writer's estate, and is known by scholars for her protectiveness over the rights to cite his work. (She did not return requests for comment.)
"We don't know who she is, and this organisation is not legit," Aisha Karefa-Smart said, referring to its lack of nonprofit status under the US tax code.
Cain called herself"an imperfect candidate for this job" because of her race. She added that she would leave the organisation if her presence hindered efforts to save the house.
In recent months, the group, now called His Place in Provence, has expanded; among the principals are Dereke Clements, an African-American dancer in France, and its advisory board includes the writer Rebecca Walker, daughter of the novelist Alice Walker. H`l'e8ne Roux Jeandheur, whose mother was close to Baldwin and whose family still runs the art-filled Colomb d'Or hotel here, where Baldwin used to spend time in the evenings, is helping set up a French nonprofit.
But even if the revamped group can raise more money, it is not clear that the house can be reclaimed. In November a local developer, Socri, said it would consider selling the property for 9 million euros (about $9.5 million), according to an email from Socri's real estate agent provided by Cain.
But for some in France, the lack of recognition shows disrespect for Baldwin in a town that honours other cultural figures who lived there, including Matisse and Chagall. For others, the family's loss of the house speaks to the difficulties faced by African-Americans in owning property and their cultural heritage.
Baldwin left behind an unfinished play, The Welcome Table, about an African-American living in the South of France. Its title refers to the table in his garden where friends would talk late into the night. In the developer's plans, that patch of lawn will become the entrance to an underground garage.
