Traces of the ephemeral: Afromodern connections in the jazz and travel writings of Elisabeth Sauvy aka Titana

Abstract

The adventurous life and work of Tita na, or Elisabeth Sauvy, is all but forgotten today, due in part to her condemnation as a collaborationist during World War II, but also because of the ephemeral nature of her journalistic prose. Her jazz and travel writings had, however, a significant role in the transmission of the new musical, literary, and art forms that were traversing the Atlantic, and her editorial activities allowed her to introduce new black cultural actors to a highly influential European circle. This article examines Tita na's controversial trajectory in an attempt to shed light on an unorthodox contribution to Afromodernism in the early years of the twentieth century.