I Always Knew
A Memoir

The extraordinary life story of the celebrated artist and writer, as told The extraordinary life story of the celebrated artist and writer, as toldthrough four decades of intimate letters to her beloved mother. through four decades of intimate letters to her beloved mother.

Barbara Chase-Riboud has led a remarkable life. After graduating from Yale’s Schoolof Design and Architecture, she moved to Europe and spent decades traveling theworld and living at the center of artistic, literary, and political circles. She became a
renowned artist whose work is now in museum collections around the world. Later,she also became an award-winning poet and bestselling novelist. And along the way,she met many luminaries?from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Salvador Dalí, Alexander
Calder, James Baldwin, and Mao Zedong to Toni Morrison, Pierre Cardin, JacquelineKennedy Onassis, and Josephine Baker.

I Always Knew is an intimate and vivid portrait of Chase-Riboud’s life as told throughthe letters she wrote to her mother, Vivian Mae, between 1957 and 1991. In candiddetail, Chase-Riboud tells her mother about her life in Europe, her work as an artist,
her romances, and her journeys around the world, from Western and Eastern Europe to the Middle East, Africa, the Soviet Union, China, and Mongolia.

By turns brilliant and naïve, passionate and tender, poignant and funny, these lettersshow Chase-Riboud in the process of becoming who she is and who she mightbecome. But what emerges most of all is the powerful story of a unique and
remarkable relationship between a talented, ambitious, and courageous daughterand her adored mother.