Paris Noir

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By a twist of fate, my parents moved to France when I was only three years old and my first encounter with the dark side of Paris was when, a year or so later, I was parachuted into the école maternelle and, little British boy that I happened to be (albeit with a Polish name of sorts), was quickly bullied and mildly beaten up by all the other kids because, a long-lasting grievance in France, the British had once burned Joan of Arc!

Needless to say, becoming fluent in French became a personal priority, and I promptly made certain my true nationality was soon forgotten as well as finding out that Joan of Arc’s fiery demise was actually at the hands of her French compatriots…

To cut a long story short, I went on to live in Paris until my mid-twenties and have since cultivated a curious relationship with France and the French. But my love of Paris has never changed, a city of delights and contradictions which still manages to fascinate, surprise and unsettle me on every visit to old and new haunts. Much better commentators than me have waxed rhapsodic over the centuries about this city of light, its culture, its geography, its soul, its uniqueness, but being a foreigner in Paris, a spy beneath my bilingual cloak, has also allowed me different insights into the character of the city, its rainbow assortment of people and quirks. Indeed, Paris has proven a magnet for decades to generations of foreign writers, artists, more than just tourists, and this head-on clash of visions has generated some truly wonderful books, films and art.

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