The Stone Face, by William Gardner Smith **online meeting**
Details
Simeon Brown, a Black American man and survivor of a brutal hate crime, escapes the horrors of the 1950s Jim Crow America for what he believes will be a freer life in Paris. Initially he and his Black friends are living their best lives: they are welcome in every club and establishment... the French cops even protect them from exported racism from the US.
But as Simeon befriends a group of Algerians he finds himself staring at the racism he fled, now refracted through a French lens; the colonial brutality inflicted on Algerians by the French state. As Simeon bears witness to atrocities he finds himself battling an internal war, torn between remaining a silent bystander and confronting the moral weight of complicity.
Smith masterfully weaves themes of exile and belonging, complicity and resistance. The novel compels readers to navigate the tension between moral responsibility and self-preservation.