Discipline: Film/Video – screenplay, Literature – fiction

Jean-Claude Charles

Discipline: Film/Video – screenplay, Literature – fiction
Region: Paris, FRANCE
MacDowell Fellowships: 1981, 1985

Jean-Claude Charles (1949-2008) emigrated to the U.S. from Haiti as a young man and, first in Chicago and then in New York, established himself as a talented author. He later moved to France where he studied journalism and information technology at the Strasbourg School of Journalism and earned his master's degree at the University of Paris in the Department of Science Studies and Communication Techniques. He remained in Paris for several years writing for the daily Le Monde’s travel section.

Charles later worked as a poet, novelist, screenwriter, stage manager, and author for documentaries and television. He then co-produced a French radio series and from 2003 to 2006, he was a columnist for the Haiti Tribune. Charles spent much of his life dividing time between New York and Paris, thus inspiring his famous protagonist, Ferdinand, of his two novels: Manhattan Blues and Ferdinand I am in Paris.

Studios

New Jersey

Jean-Claude Charles worked in the New Jersey studio.

The yellow clapboard New Jersey Studio, located on a grassy, sloping site, was funded by the New Jersey Federation of Women’s Clubs and built as an exact replica of Monday Music Studio (1913). The studio’s porch rests on fieldstone piers that increase in height as the ground slopes to the west. Like Monday Music Studio, New Jersey…

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