Spy Novels Made Me a Better Black Woman Writer
How novelist Aya de León challenged the James Bond trope and found her voice.
Jan 12 2021, 2:45 pm EST
When I was a senior in high school, I had an older boyfriend in community college. I watched my first 1960s James Bond movies with him. “Connery was the only real Bond,” he told me with his confident, lopsided grin. He was mad that George Lazenby, not Sean Connery, starred in the one Bond movie where the spy fell in love. His wife is killed right after the wedding, so Bond is technically a widower.