Romance in Marseille was published for the first time this year -- nearly a century after it was written. It's the story of Lafala, a ship-worker from an unnamed locale in colonized West Africa, who stows away on a boat heading to New York out of Marseille. After being discovered, he's locked in a freezing bathroom on the boat for the bulk of the crossing. On his arrival in New York, he finds he has lost the use of his legs, and he is taken to a hospital where they are amputated. Things take an unexpected turn when a fellow patient -- a Black man from Harlem -- puts Lafala in touch with a lawyer who sues the shipping company, which settles for a large payment. The company is made to provide Lafala with high quality artificial limbs and he's shipped back to Marseille first class and finds a new quality of life there with his money, though without his legs.
The most interesting part of this book is the portrait of 1920s Marseille itself. In the bars and brothels in Quayside, sailors and workers of different races from all over the world mingle. Lafala's circle includes other Africans, African-Americans, West Indians, among others. The common thread of the African Diaspora and life at sea binds them together. Lafala's love interest is Sudanese, by way of Morocco. The Marseille of this book is a global city, a port connected to the whole world. It made me curious about Marseille, and also left me wondering if anyplace like this exists in the present day.
