| Summary: |
I will die at seventy, because after that it is only pain. And it was at the age of seventy that Nina Simone died on April 21, 2003, in the south of France, after a life of sighs and wonders, suffering and exaltation, fighting and exile. Born in America of 1930s, Eunice Waymon, an early genius, dreams of becoming the first black classical concert performer, but is refused entry to the Conservatory because of her skin color. Become a jazz singer by default, she is forced to take a pseudonym to play what her pastor mother calls the music of the devil and baptizes herself Nina (child, in Spanish) Simone (like Simone Signoret, whom she admires). An icon will be born. She who dreamed of Maria Callas as an equal was a sacrificed child, a prodigal pianist, an activist committed body and soul in the struggle for the liberation of blacks, a visionary interpreter, an African witch, a woman damaged in her frantic quest for 'love. A woman used, deceived, broken but never resigned, even though her existence was gradually crumbling, fight after fight. From North Carolina to New York, from Barbados to Liberia, from Geneva to Amsterdam, from Aix in Provence in Carry-le-Rouet where she died, Nina Simone's life was a long journey in search of a serenity that was always denied her. Enriched by the testimonies of his loved ones and by unpublished interviews with outstanding figures from the musical and intellectual life of the 20th century, the book by David Brun-Lambert offers for the first time a picture of the nebulous and romantic destiny of the last great diva of the century, precipitated towards a tragic end that no novelist could have invented as justly as life itself. |
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