CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

When the Gestapo Raided the Villa Seurat

Villa Seurat, XIV Arrondissement. Wikimedia. CC BY 3.0.

In 1930, Henry Miller arrived in Paris with only a razor, toothbrush, pen, notebook and walking stick to his name. He set up shop on the Villa Seurat, a short cul-de-sac street in the 14th arrondissement, near the writers Anais Nin and his sometimes housemate, Lawrence Durrell, as well as the painter Chaim Soutine.

It was here that Miller began to write Tropic of Cancer. It was also here that Miller became so obsessed with astrology that he painted his astrological chart on the wall of his room. He would spend many evenings on the roof of the house, scanning the heavens with his telescope. One night he became so entranced by his planetary observations that he stepped onto the building’s skylight, breaking through the glass and falling down more than 20 feet to a hard landing on the floor. Somehow he emerged with only a few cuts and bruises from a fall that........

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