Anatole Broyard
| Anatole Broyard | |
|---|---|
Broyard in 1971
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| Born | Anatole Paul Broyard July 16, 1920 New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Died | October 11, 1990 (aged 70) Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | Louisiana Creole |
| Alma mater | New School for Social Research |
| Spouse | Aida Sanchez Alexandra (Sandy) Nelson |
Anatole Paul Broyard (July 16, 1920 – October 11, 1990) was an American writer, literary critic and editor from New Orleans who wrote for The New York Times. In addition to his many reviews and columns, he published short stories, essays, and two books during his lifetime. His autobiographical works, Intoxicated by My Illness (1992) and Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir (1993), were published after his death. He had moved to Brooklyn, New York with his family as a youth.
Several years after his death, Broyard became the center of controversy when it was revealed that he had "passed" as white as an adult. Moving to Greenwich Village, where there were other aspiring writers and artists who had moved from their pasts, he had wanted to be accepted as a writer, rather than a 'black writer.' Some friends said they always knew he had black ancestry. A Louisiana Creole of mixed race ancestry, Broyard was criticized by some black political figures for his decisions, as he had acted as an individual during a period of increased communal political activity by African Americans. Since the late 20th century, advocates of multiracial culture have cited Broyard as an example of someone insisting on an independent racial identity before it was widely popular in mainstream America.
Anatole Broyard was born in 1920 in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a mixed-race Louisiana Creole family, the son of Paul Anatole Broyard, a carpenter and construction worker, and his wife, Edna Miller, neither of whom had finished elementary school. Broyard was descended from ancestors who were established as free people of color before the Civil War. The first Broyard recorded in Louisiana was a French colonist in the mid-eighteenth century. Broyard was the second of three children; he and his sister Lorraine, two years older, were light skinned with features that were more European. Their younger sister Shirley, who eventually married Franklin Williams, a lawyer and civil rights leader, had darker skin and features that were more African.
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