LeRoy S. Hodges - Portrait of an Expatriate: William Gardner Smith, Writer (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies)

Cover

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PORTRAIT OF AN EXPATRIATE

Page ii

William Gardner Smith, 1973

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William Gardner Smith, Writer

LeRoy S.Hodges, Jr.

Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, Number 91

Greenwood Press

Westport, Connecticut London, England

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hodges, LeRoy S.
Portrait of an expatriate.
(Contributions in Afro-American and African studies,
ISSN 00699624; no. 91)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Smith, William Gardner, 19271974. 2. Authors,
American20th centuryBiography. 3. Afro-Americans
Biography. I. Title. II. Series.
PS3537.M8685Z69 1985 813.54 [B] 85934
ISBN 0-313-24882-6

Copyright 1985 by LeRoy S.Hodges, Jr.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 85934

ISBN: 0-313-24882-6

ISSN: 0069-9624

First published in 1985

Greenwood Press
A division of Congressional Information Service, Inc.
88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.481984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Copyright Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment is given for permission to reprint the following:

Extracts from The Expatriate Tradition Then and Now, The Paris Review, Winter-Spring 1965 issue, No. 33., pp. 15859, 16466.

Excerpts reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., from: LAST OF THE CONQUERORS, copyright 1948 by William Gardner Smith; ANGER AT INNOCENCE, copyright 1950 by William Gardner Smith; SOUTH STREET, copyright 1954 by William Gardner Smith; and THE STONE FACE, copyright 1963 by William Gardner Smith.

Excerpts from RETURN TO BLACK AMERICA, copyright 1970. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632.

Reprinting of The Compensation for the Wound, appearing in Two Cities, Summer 1961, pp. 6769, with the permission of Jean Fanchette.

Correspondence between Jerry H.Bryant and William Gardner Smith and LeRoy S.Hodges, Jr., with the permission of Jerry H.Bryant.

Correspondence between Richard Gibson and LeRoy S.Hodges, Jr., with the permission of Richard Gibson.

Correspondence between Edith Smith Earle, William Gardner Smith, and LeRoy S.Hodges, Jr., with the permission of Edith Smith Earle.

Conversations and excerpts therein and materials given to LeRoy S.Hodges, Jr., by Mary Sewell Smith concerning William Gardner Smith and Mary Sewell Smith with her permission.

Letters and excerpts therein of correspondence between William Gardner Smith, LeRoy S. Hodges, Jr., and Celia Hornung Sanders with her permission.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this book, but in some instances this has proven impossible. The publishers will be glad to receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent prints of this book, and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions.

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IN MEMORIAM

For my loving parents,
Mabel Louise Featherstone Hodges
and LeRoy Samuel Hodges, Sr.

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I am a roving expatriate. I have wandered from place to place, from country to country. I still have no idea where I shall eventually strike roots. This rootlessness has its inconveniences, but it has an advantage, too: it gives a certain perspective. I sailed to Europe for a vacation. This stretched into months, then years.

William Gardner Smith, in his
unpublished manuscript,
Through Dark Eyes

The danger of being an expatriate is that you are very likely to find yourself living, in effect, nowhere. This means that, as time goes on, the expatriate may find that he has no real or relevant concerns, and no grasp of reality. He is living, really, on the hazzards and energies of other people; he has ceased to pay his way.

James Baldwin, in an interview
in Istanbul, Ernest Dunbar, The
Black Expatriates, p. 19

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This biography of William Gardner Smith could not have been written without the splendid cooperation of many people. In the many hours they granted me for interviews, I came to know Smith, the man, and his career. The research for this study has taken me primarily to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Paris, France, where, in both cities, members of his family and friends welcomed my decision to examine him.