James Baldwin's French: The Case of Giovanni's Room

Abstract: This article is an analysis of bilingualism in James Baldwin's 1956 novel Giovanni's Room . It is based on bibliographical and archival material, asking how significant amounts of a foreign language (French) are incorporated into a novel written principally in another language (English). It shows how (and, to some extent, why) much of the French is inaccurate both in pre-publication typescript materials and in many published editions, except, interestingly, the first UK edition (1957), which is spectacularly accurate. It also considers the challenge of translating a bilingual novel into its secondary language, examining the first French translation by Élisabeth Guinsbourg (1997).