Surviving Paris: A Memoir of Healing in the City of Light

A deeply personal account of a young Black woman who set out to shake up her life by moving abroad but got a lot more than she bargained for.

Surviving Paris is not Emily in Paris. It’s not a story of moving to the City of Light, meeting a dashing Frenchman, and raising beret-wearing enfants. It is not a romantic fantasy. It is a true story about a young, Black single woman and what happens when your Paris dream turns into a Paris nightmare.

After more than a decade as a journalist and television producer, Robin Allison Davis decided to shake up her life and move to France. But it wasn’t quite the life she expected. When she was just thirty-four, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Surviving Paris recounts her journey from diagnosis through multiple surgeries to surviving the strictest Covid-19 lockdowns, only to be told her cancer had come back—and how she got to finding herself healthy again, including all the detours in between.

While this book is about cancer, it’s not just about survival. It's a love story about cancer. It's a story about Robin's love of adventure, her love of love, and her love for herself. Grounded yet irreverent, informative, and anecdotal, Surviving Paris has laughter, sorrow, and some unforgettable cringeworthy moments. It also has courage, surprises, and remarkable depths of heart.

Robin writes about the struggles of finding her community and family away from home, dating on Tinder with one boob, and learning to be the best advocate for her medical care in a culture she doesn't completely understand, and that doesn’t understand her. Surviving Paris details the good, the bad, and the ugly of expatriating to Paris and one American woman’s unexpected and often hilarious journey—and her precious second chance at life.

Robin Allison Davis is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, writer, and producer based in Paris and born and raised in the Washington, DC, area. After a ten-year television career in New York City and desiring to see more of the world, she moved to Paris in 2016 to pursue the dream of a more international lifestyle—and got more than she bargained for. A two-time breast cancer survivor, SURVIVING PARIS is her first book.

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