Queenie: Godmother of Harlem By Aurelie Levy and Elizabeth Colomba
A historical graphic novel inspired by the life of Harlem's legendary mobster, Stephanie Saint-Clair
Queenie follows the life of Stephanie Saint-Clair—the infamous criminal who made herself a legend in Harlem in the 1930s. Born on a plantation in the French colony of Martinique, Saint-Clair left the island in 1912 and headed for the United States, eager to make a new life for herself. In New York she found success, rising up through poverty and battling extreme racism to become the ruthless queen of Harlem’s mafia and a fierce defender of the Black community.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
From Martinique descent, born and raised in France, Elizabeth Colomba is a representational artist living in New York City. Her previous years as a storyboard artist for Hollywood came in handy to transition from figurative painting to imagining a graphic novel with a cinematic quality. Specialized in postcolonial art, dedicated to reinstalling and liberating the Black body from traditionally restrictive storylines, Colomba analyzes the construction of identity and tangled interrelationship between past and present in our collective identity today. Her works have been exhibited in institutions such as the Met and the LACMA and are part of the permanent collection of the Studio museum in Harlem, the Park Armory Avenue, Yale, PAFA, and JP Morgan. Aurelie Levy is a screenwriter, novelist, and documentary filmmaker. Born and raised in France, she pursued her higher education in Japan at the prestigious ICU in Tokyo where she studied history. She then extended her film and history studies at UCLA where she met Elizabeth Colomba. She then went on to write and direct six feature length documentaries. For the past 20 years she has traveled around the globe unveiling relevant stories and addressing current issues. Among the subjects she tackled are: celebrity culture, international adoption, and men in the #metoo era. Recently she has explored the hurdles of overlooked historical figures such as Stephanie Saint-Clair, the heroine of Levy and Elizabeth Colomba's debut graphic novel Queenie: Godmother of Harlem. Levy currently writes screenplays and TV series for French and US productions and hosts a podcast on writing with the largest literary media company in France. Other books by the author include the novel And the Oscar Goes To (2012) and The 21st Man (2021)