Black, French, and Feminist: A Q&A With the Co-founder of Coven
Lucie Camara. Photo Credit: Elodie Paul
The new bookwomen of Paris.
A millennial bookwoman? Now that’s dope.
Meet Lucie Camara. Our first les gens of the new year.
I came to know Lucie, a hospitality vet, in 2018 while being my usual charmingly cranky self at a popular neighborhood cafe. Within the year, I, along with a roomful of locals and expats, would gather at a lovely yoga studio in the Strasbourg Saint-Denis area of Paris to discuss Roxanne Gay’s Bad Feminist at the launch of the COVEN book club.
Chosen for its numerous points of entry and ability to launch conversations about hard topics surrounding race and gender, the book kick-started interesting dialogues across diverse topics such as: homophobia, triggers, motherhood, and celebrities such as Lena Dunham and Tyler the Creator, to name a few.
Now COVEN, which started as a book club, has plans to expand into a brick and mortar English language bookstore and cafe led by Lucie and her British counterpart, co-founder Louise Binns. And we are on board.
The pair made a dope move in December 2019 by engaging their network and community to raise funds for COVEN using the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. (At press time, the pair had raised more than 60% of the funds. You can view or donate to the pair’s kickstarter campaign by clicking the button on the left.)
And for those tracking movements, we can’t help but draw parallels to a period of time in the United States when bookwomen created a movement that facilitated some important conversations surrounding anti-racism and feminist accountability. The pair behind COVEN are committed to intersectional feminism, engaged literature, and ethical hospitality. Checkmate.
The difference between then and now is the rise of e-books and audiobooks, which are not as accessible in France. However, your preference for consumption won’t hinder your ability to partake in COVEN. “The ideas and the conversations that emerge from what we read is what matters most,” said Lucie. The bookwoman also mentioned the importance of being “conscious of the platforms we use“ in order to “do the best that we can.”
Apres Josephine sent Lucie a few questions about COVEN, afro-feminism, and intersectionality. Here’s what she had to say.
You chose the name COVEN because of “its history of sheltering and nurturing radical thinkers in the fight against oppression.” Tell us about some radical thinkers or covens that you admire.
The first one that comes to my mind is pretty obvious: Angela Davis. Not only for her activism in the 1960s but for the work that she keeps on doing today - especially for the abolition of the prison system in the U.S. - and for everything she does around justice and inequality. In my eyes, this makes her one of the most important thinkers of our time.
More locally, I’ll mention two public figures that have brought new perspectives to my way of thinking: Rokhaya Diallo, whose resilience in speaking up against racism and sexism in the French State is inspiring, and Paul B. Preciado, whose unapologetic views on gender, masculinity and politics expanded my brain in ways I didn’t know possible. His conversation on the podcast Les Couilles Sur La Table literally blew my mind. Yes, literally.
As for “covens,” two of my biggest inspirations for starting my own space are Red Emma’s in Baltimore and Bluestockings in New York City. Red Emma's is a restaurant, radical bookstore and community events space owned by a worker’s cooperative. It does an amazing job bringing forth radical ideas and being a safer space for the people most in need, such as transgender people, homeless people and people with disabilities. Bluestockings is similar in many ways. For example, in January, they’re hosting a free writing workshop and healing space for sex workers. I’m very inspired by their event calendar and what they offer their community. In my mind, these spaces deserve the term “coven”, not because they are dedicated to the practice of witchcraft (although I’m sure they both carry some books on the topic), but because they are a shelter for the victims of the capitalist heteropatriarchy. And that is definitely the kind of magic I aspire to.
Lucie Camara and Louise Binns of COVEN.
Photo Credit: Elodie Paul
What revolutionary text can consumers hope to find at COVEN? Will there be queer lit? What about romance novels?
The idea is really to become a reference in all aspects of radical thinking: Feminism, anti-racism, LGBTQIA+. We’re trying to be on top of new releases and hope to help people get those books without going through Amazon. As for romance novels, love is more often than not at the center of radical and revolutionary stories, so I don’t see why not! There’ll also be Young Adult and Children’s titles.
Will you organize feminist writings in English, geographically? Temporally?
I don’t think it’d make much sense to organise our books geographically or temporally as many of our topics cover several places and periods. We’re thinking of taking a more thematic approach.
Feminist book shops like Amazon Bookstore Cooperative and feminist printing presses changed history. What old school book shops have influenced you in some way?
Shakespeare and Company is definitely a very influential historical place for us. Especially in the curation of their events and the room -both physical and conceptual-they leave for critical thinking and conversation. Violette and Co and La Librairie Des Femmes in Paris are also two very important places for feminism in France. We definitely bow down to them.
Everyone has a different relationship with the word feminist. What does feminist mean to you?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, despite some problematic views on transgender and non-binary people that I do not support, has a pretty good definition: “A feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better.” I like this definition because it goes further than just saying “we believe in the equality of the sexes” which most people today, in France at least, would agree with. This definition highlights the fact that being a feminist today is to recognise that we, as a society, still have a problem with the feminine and that we still need to come together to dismantle the patriarchy that discriminates against all of us.
If we were to create a faux Kinsey scale to represent feminism (0 terrible feminist, 2 or 3 bad feminist and 6 for a phenomenal feminist), where would you fall? Why?
I don’t know if you can really do a linear scale of feminism… We’re all flawed and have our strengths and weaknesses. The important thing is to get out of our comfort zone and work on said “weaknesses.” One thing I’d say is that my business partner Louise, the other half of COVEN, impressed me from day one with how much she seeks out stories that are as far from her own experience as possible. I think that’s a very important quality in any matter, but in feminism in particular because for me it is the key to intersectionality: the ability to listen to other voices, to understand gender is rarely the only defining factor of an oppression, or even a power dynamic, and that we can not know everything nor speak for everyone. I admit that I look up to her for that. I have a tendency to be drawn to stories in which I recognise my own experience. Yes, as a black French woman I do have to actively seek them out, but Louise’s TBR list made me realize that the hardest part of the job was elsewhere.
“The French politics of assimilation succeeded in making a whole generation of racialized kids believe in the “we don’t see color” discourse.”
What are some essential books everyone should read for insights into Afro-French feminism?
There are two books that I cannot recommend enough, and they are both in English: Black French Women and the Struggle for Equality, and To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe. I’d add the Mwasi Collective Manifest Afrofem, which is in French, but should be on everyone’s shelves.
Kimberly Crenshaw coined the phrase intersectional feminism after concluding traditional feminist ideals exclude black women, and your Kickstarter campaign references a dedication to intersectional feminism. How do you plan to embrace intersectionality? What do you envision as a safe space for intersectional feminism? How does that look or feel to you?
At COVEN, we believe any type of feminism that refuses to recognise the altering factor of race, sexuality, class, gender, or disability on a person’s experience and struggle simply cannot be taken seriously. In the books we choose to put forth, and the future events we want to organise, we’re very conscious about who gets to speak about what topics and which voices need more representation. We’re definitely not perfect, but we try to step out from what we know and not speak for others. As for the place itself, I have worked in so many environments that were toxic for anyone who wasn’t white, male, a French citizen, straight. I am adamant about implementing a zero-tolerance policy for that kind of behaviour/comments, as much for us and our future staff as for our customers.
How was it growing up in France, presumably, as an Afro-French feminist? (Particularly in a society where its celebrities have openly pushed back against the Me Too movement happening in the USA.)
Here’s the thing, I didn’t grow up as an Afro-French feminist in France because, at the time of my childhood and up until very recently, both the feminist and the racial conversation were dormant. The French politics of assimilation succeeded in making a whole generation of racialized kids believe in the “we don’t see color” discourse. When you add to that the narrative that feminism “won” thanks to the 1970s and is therefore now obsolete, well it makes for a pretty rough awakening when you realise in adulthood that your blackness always has and always will matter, and the same goes for your gender and how you decide to embody it.
What relationship does Afro-French feminism have to black American feminism? Do you feel like Afro-French feminism has been overshadowed by black American feminism?
I think, especially nowadays, there’s a desire to shine a light on the French Black Feminist trailblazers. Many of us, especially from my generation, got our awakening through African-American Feminist literature - Angela Davis, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins - and it’s only in a second phase that we hear about the Nardal sisters, who were at the foundation of the Negritude movement or Gerty Archimède, one of the first Black female politicians in France, who created a Feminist Federation in Guadeloupe in the late 50s. I wouldn’t say they’ve been overshadowed by Black American feminism - that’s not where the blame should land. Instead, I would question the mechanism of France’s national memory. Who do we celebrate? Who do we remember? Again, there’s some great work being done these days to give these icons the recognition they deserve.
If you could gather any 5 influential feminists for a panel discussion, who would you pick?
My dream panel would be Angela Davis, Zadie Smith, Paul B. Preciado, Virginie Despentes and Anhoni. We’d have them talk about what it means to be radical in their work and in their lives. This would be my ultimate dream.
If you had to describe your vibe using a book title, what would it be?
If I have to get it down to only a few titles, the two that scream my name would be Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson and How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti. They’re two questions that I’ve been grappling with for as long as I can remember and also two books that I love dearly. As for COVEN, To Exist is to Resist or Feminism Is For Everybody by bell hooks. I’ll let you draw your own conclusion.