Eddy L. Harris (born January 26, 1956) is an American writer of creative nonfiction and a filmmaker.

Early life

Harris was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and moved to

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, at 18 months of age. He graduated from the

Saint Louis Priory School , image = , address = 500 South Mason Road , city = Creve Coeur , state = Missouri , zipcode = 63141 , country = United States , ...

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Harris has worked as a Visiting Writer-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis and as a faculty member in Goucher College's writing program, and he lives in France.

Writing career

Harris published his first work, ''Mississippi Solo'', an account of his journey by canoe down the entire length of the nation's major waterway, in 1988. This work combined aspects of journalism, travel writing, autobiography and memoir, and personal reflection, and, as with Harris's subsequent works, focused specifically on questions of African-American identity in relation to history and place. ''Mississippi Solo'' was the 2003–2004 selection of Missouri ReadMOre, a statewide book-reading program, and Harris received the Missouri Governor's Humanities Award for this work in 2004. His second book, ''Native Stranger'', a critical and unsparing account of his journey through Africa, led to a loss of some Black readers. Instead of a valentine, Harris described the poverty and corruption he witnessed in many places, as well as the despair he both saw and felt at times. He has said in an interview that after the book's publication, some Black readers even showed up at readings to denounce him. His third book, ''South of Haunted Dreams'', describes Harris’s solo motorcycle trip through the deep South. In a 2005 interview with Missy Raterman and Zoe Wexler in ''nidus'', a literary and arts journal based at the University of Pittsburgh, Harris described his work as "certainly travel, because it has some aspects of travel in it, though it isn't like

Paul Theroux Paul Edward Theroux (born April 10, 1941) is an American novelist and travel writer who has written numerous books, including the travelogue, '' The Great Railway Bazaar'' (1975). Some of his works of fiction have been adapted as feature films. He ...

's travel books. Essay works best for me because I just like the idea of being an essayist. It is memoirist because it is me and my memories – but that's a marketing thing." In the same interview, he questioned the automatic categorization of him as a "Black" writer and its effects on how his work might be read, though he also acknowledged his desire for his work to create bridges both within and outside Black culture. Practically unrecognized in the USA and nearly out of print, Harris now lives in France where he has been awarded the 21st (2007) ''Prix du Livre en Poitou-Charentes'' for ''Still Life in Harlem'' (published as ''Harlem'' in France). His work has been acknowledged by the

Centre national du livre The Centre national du livre (CNL) is a French établissement public à caractère administratif. The CNL is placed under the administrative supervision of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication (, ). Its vocation and role is to supp ...

, notably for ''Jupiter et Moi,'' a memoir about the life of a black man and his son. His most recent book to have been published is "Paris en noir et black" (Liana Levi, 2009), a translation of ''Paris Reflected in Black and White'', translated by Jean Guiloineau. In 2014, Harris began producing a documentary film about his second canoe journey down the Mississippi River, ''River to the Heart'', which screened on November 4, 2017, at the St. Louis International Film Festival. In an interview posted on ''Bending Branches'' website, Harris described the film by stating that "he wanted to experience and then show others that no matter what our color, the more we know each other the less we fear, and the more unity we’ll have as a country.""River to the Heart: An Interview with Eddy Harris"
''Bending Branches'', March 9, 2018.

Literary influences

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

* Truman Capote *

John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...

Books

*''Mississippi Solo'', 1988. *''Native Stranger'', 1992. (Selected as a "Notable Book of 1992" by '' The New York Times'') *''South of Haunted Dreams'', 1993. *''Still Life in Harlem'', 1996. (Selected as a "Notable Book of 1997" by ''The New York Times''), translated into French as ''Harlem'', 2007. *''Jupiter et Moi'', 2005. *''Paris en noir et black'', 2009.

Films

*''River to the Heart'', 2017. Winner, Best Documentary i
Ozark Foothills FilmFest
2018. Website
www.rivertotheheart.com

References

External links

Rolf Potts' Eddy Harris page

May 2009 Interview with Eddy Harris

Eddy Harris on Vimeo

Dominique Mantelli "Carving Paris: A Literary interview with Eddy L. Harris"
''Saint Louis Gateway Heritage Magazine'', Vol. 21, Spring 2001 * Dominique Mantelli
"Carving Paris"
Interview with Eddy L. Harris. ''Gateway Heritage'' 21, no. 4 (Spring 2001): 41–47. {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Eddy L. 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people 1956 births African-American writers American writers Goucher College faculty and staff Living people Stanford University alumni Washington University in St. Louis faculty