First published in 1963, The Stone Face tells the tale of a young African-American man who takes refuge from American racism in France, only to find himself complicit in a racist order of another sort. Simeon Brown, a journalist who, as a teenager, lost an eye in a racist attack, lives in his native Philadelphia in a state of agonizing tension, and after a violent encounter with some white sailors on shore leave, he decides to pack up and leave for Paris, known as a safe haven for black artists and intellectuals. But soon Simeon discovers that Paris is not the racial wonderland he took it to be and his friendship with Hossein, an Algerian radical, will lead him to realize that he can no longer remain a passive spectator to French injustice.