The Enigma of the Return

"Only a journey without a return ticket can save us from family, blood and small-town thinking."

Laferrière's The Enigma of the Return is a mixture of verse and prose on identity and exile for an autobiographical narrator clearly based on Dany himself. After hearing of his father's death, the narrator, Windsor, returns "home" to Haiti and discovers more about himself, his family, and to which 'homeland' he truly belongs. Central to the narrative is one of Aimé Césaire's most important writings, a poem, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, which greatly enhances this novel if one is familiar with it. Indeed, Laferriere seems to reject the "anger" of Césaire's significant text, and waxes poetic on the meaning of being an exile and the role of memory and childhood. Yet, the text contains some moving satire and critical passages on the state of Haiti, one in which the Haitian elite, the legacy of colonialism, and the Duvalier dictatorship share the blame for the sad state of Port-au-Prince and the countryside. 

In addition, there is more Vodou symbolism and metaphorical allusions to Haitian painting and culture in this text, making it, in my opinion, one of the author's best works since An Aroma of Coffee. Laferrière's ability to capture the beauty of the Haitian countryside, the colors, the dusty streets, and retain his passion for his 'homeland' while also being fully of the icy North is quite impressive (hats off to David Homel's translations). Furthermore, this work provides a sort of response to the Dalembert novel I recently read, coming from the Diaspora instead of focusing on those trapped in the island who have to leave to make a life for themselves. The novel asks some of the same questions about the flight of people to the North, whether or not one can stay and make a life by remaining in Haiti, and what it means to be an immigrant, a traveler, and what does home mean (similar to I Am a Japanese Writer, too). 

Favorite Quotes

"In my dream, Cesaire takes my father's place."

"We're stuck in a bad novel ruled by a tropical dictator who keeps ordering the beheading of his subjects."

"Entire populations travel northward in search of life."

"I miss my childhood more intensely than my country."

"For most people the hereafter is the only country they have any hope of visiting."

"If you're not thin when you're twenty in Haiti, it's because you're on the side of power."

"There are so few tourists in this country we should pay them to stay."

"The Tonton Macoutes of my era had to hide behind dark glasses. Serial killers. Papa Doc was the only star."

"Every family has its absent member in the group portrait. Papa Doc introduced exile to the middle class. Before, such a fate was reserved only for a president who fell victim to a pup or one of those rare intellectuals who could also be a man of action."

"Why stay in this mud hole mixed with shit trampled by crowds hemmed in by malarial anopheles when you could lead a dream life?"

"In the international media, Haiti always appears deforested. Yet I see trees everywhere."

"The owners reside in New York, Berlin, Paris, Milan, or even Tokyo. Like in the days of slavery when the real masters of Hispaniola lived in Bordeaux, Nantes La Rochelle, or Paris."

"Kidnapping has become such a lucrative business that the rich weren't going to miss out on the action for long."

"The night before, I drank some fruit juice from a stall along my way, just to prove that I was still a son of the soil. Nationalism can trick my mind, but not my guts."

"I had forgotten about culture in the provinces, so refined and so musty."