Book description from Goodreads:
For readers who have been drawn to The Paris Wife, Black Venuscaptures the artistic scene in the great French city decades earlier, when the likes of Dumas and Balzac argued literature in the cafes of the Left Bank. Among the bohemians, the young Charles Baudelaire stood out—dressed impeccably thanks to an inheritance that was quickly vanishing. Still at work on the poems that he hoped would make his name, he spent his nights enjoying the alcohol, opium, and women who filled the seedy streets of the city.
One woman would catch his eye—a beautiful Haitian cabaret singer named Jeanne Duval. Their lives would remain forever intertwined thereafter, and their romance would inspire his most infamous poems—leading to the banning of his masterwork, Les Fleurs du Mal, and a scandalous public trial for obscenity.
James MacManus’s Black Venus re-creates the classic Parisian literary world in vivid detail, complete with not just an affecting portrait of the famous poet but also his often misunderstood, much-maligned muse.
first as a reporter in the London office and then as a foreign correspondent in France, Africa and the Middle East. Following a position on the diplomatic staff of the Daily Telegraph in London, he joined The Times, eventually rising to Managing Editor then Managing Director of The Times Literary Supplement. In 2006 his first screenplay became the major motion picture, The Children of Huang Shi, and in 2010 his critically acclaimed first novel, Language of the Sea, made its debut.
