Covering her life through 1949, these Memoirs – as told to Marcel Sauvage, a well-known journalist from between the two world wars – form a tribute to an extraordinary and extraordinarily endearing character. What an extraordinary life Freda Josephine McDonald, born in Saint Louis, Missouri (USA) to a poor, single black woman and an unnamed white man, would wind up having! The international star describes in her own words the hardships of her early life in an unabashedly racist society, her arrival in France, her start in Paris with the Revue nègre, her triumph at the Folies Bergère, her love affairs and more.

During World War II, Lieutenant Josephine Baker stood out for her bravery: although she underwent several medical operations, she joined General de Gaulle despite her physical pain. As a member of the secret services, she risked her life in the name of Freedom. She also boosted soldiers morale whenever she could. In addition to her careers as a singer, dancer and soldier, at the Chateau de Milandes, in southwestern France, Josephine Baker, gathered her Rainbow Tribe of a dozen adopted children of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. This exceptional woman bares her soul in this book, which is finally being republished in honor of Baker’s having entered France’s Pantheon on November 30, 2021

Re-discover one of our great heroines. A twentieth century legend: the Black Pearl!