The stone face

The "Stone Face" tells the story of Semyan Brown, a young African American journalist who lost an eye in a racist incident during his adolescence. Semyan moves to Paris, joining a "new lost generation" of Black Americans who left the United States due to the racist system and settled in Paris and other European cities. Against the backdrop of the Algerian independence war, the novel presents Semyan's journey from the innocence of his first encounter with a city where he is not discriminated against because of his skin color, to the realization that the face of racism takes a different form in the French capital. For nearly three decades, under official silence, "The Stone Face" was the only published testimony of the Paris massacre committed by the French police against Algerian protesters on October 17, 1961. Author: William Gardner Smith Translator: Wael Ashry