SOURCE: “Why Do Americans Live in Europe?” in transition, No. 14, Fall, 1928, pp. 97-119.

In the following essay, various expatriate American artists from Gertrude Stein to Harry Crosby explain their artistic and economic reasons for relocating and working in Paris.

transition has asked a number of Americans living in Europe to write brief stories of themselves—their autobiographies of the mind, self-examinations, confessions, conceived from the stand-point of deracination.

The following questions were asked:

1.—Why do you prefer to live outside America?

2.—How do you envisage the spiritual future of America in the face of a dying Europe and in the face of a Russia that is adopting the American economic vision?

3.—What is your feeling about the revolutionary spirit of your age, as expressed, for instance, in such movements as communism, surrealism, anarchism?

4.—What particular vision do you have of yourself in relation to twentieth century reality?

Gertrude Stein