The pilgrimage of American writers to Paris began with Henry James over a century ago, and has continued in waves ever since. This book is not concerned with the "lost generation" whose exploits between the wars have been extensively chronicled, although Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein do still preside over the opening years of the period it covers. Post-liberation Paris was where James Baldwin sought refuge from America’s racism and anti-homosexualism, and found his voice; where Irwin Shaw’s hospitality mixed Hollywood celebrities with struggling writers; where Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso caroused through the night at the "Beat Hotel" and tried to imagine what William Burroughs could do with his chaotic "Naked Lunch". Others in search of artistic freedom included Richard Wright, William Styron, James Jones and Chester Hines. The era saw the rebirth of English-language publishing in Paris. The founders of "Merlin" magazine featured Samuel Beckett in every issue, and then, when they ran out of funds, joined forces with Maurice Girodias, whose press published not only their pseudonymous erotica but also the works of Nabakov, Beckett and Burroughs. Meanwhile George Plimpton and Peter Mathieson launched "The Paris Review", a buoyant and bustling enterprise that thrives to this day. Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno, the author of "An Invisible Spectator: a Biography of Paul Bowles", traces the unlikely alliances that developed in these years. He contrasts those artists who explored and drew on French modernism with those who remained staunchly and stubbornly American in Paris. He reflects the politics of changes times – the McCarthyism that flung free-thinkers from America into exile, and the Algerian conflict which caused black expatriates to question the sincerity of French racial tolerance. And he provides a record of the formative years that projected very diverse talents into literary prominence.