James MacManus

James MacManus is the managing director of The Times Literary Supplement and the author of, most recently, Black Venus: A Novel, and The Language of the Sea. His first book, Ocean Devil, was made into a film starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Baudelaire’s Femme Fatale

Les Fleurs du Mal

Literary historians have long wondered why Charles Baudelaire, the greatest of the French poets, couldn’t write a word without his mistress, Jeanne Duval, a barely literate Creole beauty who wasted his fortunes and introduced him to opium. James MacManus, the managing director of The Times Literary Supplement and author of the novel <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Venus-Novel-James-MacManus/dp/1250014239/">Black Venus</a>, comes to the defense of the obsessive love affair.

James MacManus | Published May 07, 2013