Anatole Broyard

Broyard was married briefly to Aida Sanchez. They divorced when he returned from service after World War II. They had one daughter named Gala.

He married Alexandra Nelson in 1961 when he was 40 years old. Alexandra was a much younger woman of Norwegian-American descent. They had two children.

He was diagnosed with prostrate cancer in 1989. He continued writing in spite of his ill health and died on October 11, 1990. He had kept his African-American heritage a secret from his children which was revealed to them shortly before his death.

Anatole Broyard was born on July 16, 1920, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Paul Anatole Broyard and Edna Broyard. His father was a carpenter and construction worker. Anatole had two sisters.

He graduated from Boys High School and enrolled at the Brooklyn College in 1937. He loved to read books, but loathed studies and thus dropped out of college after a couple of years.

He did jobs after dropping out. In spite of being of mixed ancestry he declared himself to be white on his Social Security application.

He enlisted into the army in 1942 during the World War II. Since the services were segregated, he again passed off as white and went to the officers’ school. He served in the 167th Port Company, based in New Guinea.

As a result of serving in the war he acquired a G.I. Bill which provided a range of benefits to returning World War II veterans. Broyard used his G.I. Bill to study psychology and modern art at the New School for Social Research.

He retained his “white” identity after the war and aspired to become a writer. He had already begun writing during the pre-war days and now felt it was time to follow his passion wholeheartedly.

He was married with a child by then but his wife did not support his literary aspirations, so he divorced her and settled in Greenwich Village. He integrated into the village’s literary life and opened a bookstore with his savings from the war.

His autobiographical work, ‘Intoxicated by My Illness’ which was published posthumously became a widely acclaimed book. In this memoir he had bravely recounted his battle with cancer and expressed his opinions on life, illness, and death.