Josephine Baker, Fearless and Free with Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis

Join us to discuss Fearless and Free, the iconic Josephine Baker in her own words, now published for the first time in English in a new translation by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis.

Josephine Baker was born in 1906, in St Louis, Missouri. After performing in New York during the Harlem Renaissance as a teenager, she sailed to Paris at the age of 19 and became a star of stage and screen achieving international celebrity. When the Second World War broke out Baker joined the French intelligence agency and during the 50s and 60s was involved in the civil rights movement in the US. In her private life, Baker had four male husbands and a number of relationships with women, including Frida Kahlo and Colette. Baker died in 1975.

For the first time her autobiography, in her own words, is available in English. Her translators Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis will discuss the phenomenon that was, and is, Josephine Baker.

Anam Zafar is a multi-award-winning translator from Arabic and French to English. She appears on the 100 Inspiring Muslims: Next Generation Edition list (Emerald Network/Aziz Foundation). Her co-translation with Nadiyah Abdullatif of Yoghurt and Jam, Or How My Mother Became Lebanese, Lena Merhej’s graphic memoir, won a PEN Translates Award, was shortlisted for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize in Arabic Literary Translation, and was longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. Shorter translations appear in various places online and in print. Anam is also an editor and arts facilitator.

Sophie Lewis is a London-born translator and editor. Working from French and Portuguese, she has translated books by Stendhal, Jules Verne, Marcel Aymé, Violette Leduc, Leïla Slimani, Noémi Lefebvre, Nastassja Martin, Mona Chollet, Josephine Baker and Annie Ernaux, also Sheyla Smanioto, Victor Heringer and Patrícia Melo, among others. For six years she was principal editor at publisher And Other Stories, and her most recent in-house position was as managing editor at The Folio Society. With Gitanjali Patel, she co-founded the Shadow Heroes translation workshops enterprise. Lewis’s translations have been shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff and Republic of Consciousness prizes, and longlisted for the International Booker Prize. In 2022, she won the French-American Foundation’s prize for non-fiction translation.