James Campbell, former editor of the New Edinburgh Review, provides a fresh look at Samuel Beckett's early career; reveals the facts behind the publication of the scandalous best-seller The Story of O and its anonymous author's real life; and tells the complete story of Richard Wright's years in exile.

He captures the sense of deliverance that Wright, so accustomed to daily humiliations in his own country, experienced during his sojourn on the Left Bank, where, for the first time in his life, he was treated as a great man of letters. Here, too, are all the circumstances surrounding Wright's mysterious death, which many close to him regarded as suspicious. Exiled in Paris is a book that adds immeasurably to our understanding of a crucial period in the history and literature of the twentieth century.