Christine Bonnard Legrand, Foreign Rights Manager "As Josephine Baker enters the Panthéon, these interviews show how formidably modern this iconic figure was, and how brave the battles she fought."

A series of interviews from 1926 to 1949, now arranged in 10 stately chapters: impoverished childhood in St. Louis, Missouri; debuts in the Revue Nègre; anecdotes of world tours and memories of foreign countries; opening her own cabaret on Rue Fontaine, where Rita Hayworth came to see her; encounters with Édith Piaf, Colette, and Sacha Guitry; filming with Jean Gabin; her time in the French Resistance; recurrent health issues; and her keen awareness of poverty and social and racial inequality.
These firsthand accounts brim with Baker's joie de vivre, cheek, and devastating humor. She shares her recipe for anti-wrinkle banana cream and extols the lucky rabbit's fpot she's had all her life.