Fearless and Free

Fearless and Free
By: Josephine Baker 
Tiny Reparations Book, 2025. 282 pages. Memoir

Josephine Baker took Paris by storm in the 1920s, dazzling audiences with her humor, beauty and effervescence on stage. Later, as one of the most recognizable women in the world, she became a spy for the French resistance, her celebrity working as her cover. After the war she became increasingly interested in civil rights. In 1963 she spoke at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King. All this from a girl born in Missouri to a poor single black woman and a white father she did not know. Flirtatious, funny, candid and this memoir gives us the wildly famous but elusive Josephine Baker telling her own story.

This was a really fun and unique read! Going into it I knew little about Josephine Baker and by the end I felt that she was my friend. The book was written by using hours and hours of conversation between a French journalist, Marcel Sauvage, and Josephine Baker. Because of this, the book reads as if you are sitting in her home as she tells her life story. She bounces around topics and times and is very personable and witty. She lived such an extraordinary life, and as the title suggests she was fearless! I wish I had her bravery and confidence and I feel by reading this book I got a sprinkle! I was thoroughly inspired and entertained by her many stories of performance, espionage and activism. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook. 

If you like Fearless and Free you might also like: 

Errand into the maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham

By: Deborah Jowitt

Straus and Giroux, 2024. 465 pages. Biography 

From the legendary dance critic Deborah Jowitt, Errand into the Maze is the definitive biography of the visionary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham She changed how dancers were perceived onstage, devised new ways of moving, and pioneered a revolutionary dance technique. Along the way, Graham engaged with the debates, ideas, and events of the twentieth century―creating dances of social comment and human experiences. Hers was the iconic face of what came to be called modern dance.

Agent Josephine : American beauty, French hero, British spy

By: Damien Lewis

PublicAffairs, 2022.

In Agent Josephine, bestselling author Damien Lewis uncovers the extraordinary story of Josephine Baker's transformation from Paris performer to dauntless spy. Throughout World War II, using her stardom as a cloak for her secret work, Baker undertook daring clandestine missions to fight the Nazis, stamping an indelible mark on history. 

Drawing on a plethora of new material and rigorous research, including previously undisclosed letters and journals, Lewis upends the conventional story of the renowned performer, revealing why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Panthéon.

MT