Abstract
This study illuminates franco-lusophone artistic and political dialogues during the 1920s and 1930s by uncovering the life and work of Elsie Houston (1902–43) – a mixed-race, Brazilian, classically trained soprano, folk artist, Trotskyist, and folklorist. Houston performed Afro-Brazilian and South American indigenous folk songs in the operatic mode in Paris from 1926 to 1937. I examine Houston’s involvement with the Parisian artistic and political avant-garde. Houston was enmeshed in transnational modernist and surrealist networks in the French capital. In addition, Houston was connected to a network of black Atlantic artistes and intellectuals, and her trajectory therefore provides new perspectives on the black experience in interwar France. This article opens the door to an underexplored history of race, culture, and society in Paris, centring Brazilian identity.
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