Vale of Tears

"What does one more dead woman and one less poor person matter to the Republic?"

Paulette Poujol Oriol's Vale of Tears, translated from the French by Dolores A. Schaefer, is one of the most depressing novels I have read since Last Exit to Brooklyn. Set in Port-au-Prince on New Year's Eve, the plot follows the life of Coralie Santeuil, a white-skinned Haitian woman who suffered a decline in economic and social status, reduced to a destitute, disfigured, old woman who walks the streets of Port-au-Prince from slums to affluent communities to beg for the money she needs to avoid being homeless. Making her way across the fourteen stations (an obvious Christian allusion, further expounded on by the narrator who compares Coralie to Mary Magdalene), she struggles to find the money she needs and retain the generosity of former friends, landladies, pimps, and family while her weak legs struggle to carry her. 

As a prominent feminist in Haiti, Paulette Poujol Oriol's novel is a complex tale that juxtaposes the 'present' tense of Coralie's journey through Port-au-Prince with the events in her traumatized childhood and adulthood that brought her to this point of utter poverty. The marginalization, discriminatory double standards, and strict social conventions on proper "conduct" (socially, sexually, and professionally) for Haitian women are similarly criticized in conjunction with the class system that renders the majority of the population lives of misery. Through Coralie's fall from "grace" and the small world of the Haitian elite, to her position as a prostitute, beggar, laundress, factory worker, one sees a direct correlation in the status of women and the widespread poverty of the island. Given the central importance of women in Haitian society in a variety of roles, the so-called potomitan, the novel does include powerful women of the elite and lower classes, but all end up reinforcing the same sexist rules regarding sexual expression and "proper" behavior.

Indeed, women characters are just as likely as the men to support patriarchal notions of gender relations and sexuality, but, as mentioned before, this is brilliantly tied in with the subjugation of all women in Haiti and the pervasive class inequality. Numerous women who were once close with Coralie want nothing to do with her, including Magritte, a former prostitute now married to a man who cheats on her with young bouzen but she accepts as the cost of "respectability." Likewise, Coralie's best friends from her days at the Catholic boarding school (an abusive environment that mirrored her childhood experience with Aline, her stepmother), distant themselves from her because of her reputation for "misconduct" and loose morals, made worse by the amazingly swift grapevine and rumormill of Port-au-Prince society. Coralie's own children want nothing to do with her, too, the first son refusing to see her at all and the second one, Robert, believed  by Coralie to truly love her, does not even have the respect to identify Coralie as his mother to his lady guest. 

In many ways, Coralie's wounded psyche as an abused child sets her on a path of abusive relationships with men. Her distant, indifferent father does nothing to prevent her cruel and unusual treatment by her stepmother, paving the way for a plethora of negative relationships with men who use her, do not fulfill her needs beyond the superficial, and suffer unscathed from the "moral" dilemmas their relationships create. From her father to Marcel, every so-called meaningful relationship Coralie is one of men ignoring her, exploiting her naivete, or spoiling her with material goods, which becomes a degraded cycle of prostitution and loss of dignity in society's eyes. Her affair with a high-ranking German officer during WWII, her scandalous pregnancy from a former servant, her mistress status with Maurice, the lawyer, and her ultimate degradation as a prostitute in Carrefour illustrate this cycle of abuse which is traced back to her childhood.

Furthermore, the moral complexity of Coralie's character calls into question how one should identify Coralie. It is only after her ultimate fall from high society that she begins to understand and identify with the Haitian poor, particularly during her five "calm" years working at a baseball factory (symbolizing the ways in which gender oppression transcend class, and could lead to solidarity across class or color lines) after giving up her second son to a successful friend, Lise, a doctor whose husband perished in the Holocaust. Throughout her life, the relative material comfort and wealth of her father's business, her husband's coffee exports and property, and her failure to learn any household or professional work (in addition to her love for Parisian clothes, fashion, and expensive lifestyle) exemplify the restricted, materialistic pursuits of the idle Haitian elite. Moreover, Coralie's refusal to try to love her first son (and her abandonment of him for 8 years, 1938-1946), her affair with a Nazi military official, her affair with Mario, the secretary at the Dominican embassy and her elitist assumption that Marcel will marry her because of her pregnancy with Robert establish her reputation as questionable at best. 

Yet, despite these aforementioned flaws (and there are certainly more), Coralie is a victim of society's grasp on female sexual agency, as well as class confines. Not given a chance to succeed, victimized, manipulated, and tricked by her conniving stepmother, she never had much of a chance. A Haitian upper-class woman with no skills or career prospects struggles to get a job, does not last long in the few positions she finds, and, after becoming a supervisor in the baseball factory, gets her right hand paralyzed in the unsafe working condition by a perforator machine. Even when trying her best to be on the "right" path for a woman in Haitian society, not selling her body for money or favors, the obstacles facing the lower-class Haitian women are numerous. The closed world of the elite does not help Coralie, whose own family essentially banishes her under the influence of Aline. Her only "escape" as an upper-class woman was through marriage, which, ended in marital bliss but cut short by her older husband's death (and this husband, Gratien Nivel, was paternal figure for Coralie she never found in her father).

As a highly nuanced text in which all the social classes of Port-au-Prince are included, from Waney and Martissant to Petionville and Musseau, this novel endeavors to locate the entwined results of both rigid class and gender identities. Furthermore, the novel manages to avoid simple condemnation of prostitution (certainly an inevitable path for far too many women in Haiti's miserable economic opportunities) and portrays the highly nuanced role of gender, class, status, and reputation as self-replicating processes that prolong inequality. Just when one thinks Coralie finds love and acceptance, from her beautiful granddaughter who feeds her at the house of her first son, and her second son, Robert, adopted by Lise, who promises to pay for her to find a new home, her painful life ends because of a military man (who is about to start an affair with the wife of Coralie's first son, Felix) who sees his political and socio-economic status as placing him above women and the poor. 

For an interesting novel by a Haitian woman that shares this work's concern with Haitian society's attempts to control the "grave danger" of female sexuality, Katia D. Ulysse's Drifting offers a similar perspective in a Diasporic setting. This patriarchal aspect of Haitian society and the fear of a loss of respectability or daughters becoming bouzen proliferates among the lower-class Haitian immigrants in the US within the world of Drifting. Similar works by Haitian women writers also tackle this theme, though none (with the possible exception of Amour, Colère, Folie) as forcefully and with such nuance as Vale of Tears in hitting the trifecta of class, color, and gender. What's more, the English translation retains much of the Creole dialogue of the original text, adding another dimension and playful use of language for satire and humor in this novel. 

Favorite Quotes

"Coralie finally goes away with bent shoulders and a heavy heart. Rita is dead. Only Magritte remains" (69).

"She, the poor outcast, Cora la Manca, the beggar woman, cries for a long time about the fate of an unknown woman who resembles her like a sister, she cries about the child who will never have known the love and the tenderness of a mother's heart. Cora, the reprobate, cries for a long time" (78).

"Anything, even misery, rather than bringing out into the open the sordid, seamy side of the Santeuils' lives" (104).

"What would his guests say if they knew that the mother of the powerful Gratien-Felix Nivel, the extremely rich potentate, is a former brothel prostitute turned public beggar to boot?" (152)

"Coralie too abandoned the borrowed language, this French which too often is more of a barrier than a communication between Haitians" (157).

"From Felicien she gets her passive character, this tendency to submit to any will stronger than her own and to let herself be overwhelmed by adversity. That is the only legacy he has left her" (162).

"Something resembling hope quivers in a corner of her ravaged soul" (164).

"She is going to start out again calmly, slowly. She moves shakily from Morne Hercule to the exit of Petion-Ville's cemetery. Then she begins the Delmas road. She smiles thinking about Robert, the womanizer, who, up there in his isolated villa, has undressed the young foreigner" (168). 

Aunt Résia and the Spirits and Other Stories

"Like all the males in the area, Erminus is not too fond of Derisca. Like them, he had understood that Derisca did not need a man for all the normal reasons that other woman do. For him to tell her boring stories, for him to beat her sometimes or for him to lie on her when he feels like it and forcibly give her children."

The short stories collected in Aunt Résia and the Spirits and Other Stories, translated from the French by Betty Wilson, are thematically reminiscent of the work of Dalembert and Lyonel Trouillot. Like these two writers, Lahens captures the misery and downright degradation of life in Haiti, most effectively in Port-au-Prince settings. What distinguishes her, in my opinion, is her much stronger female characters, an ability to switch between narrators seamlessly, (one short story features second person narration) although Trouillot's Children of Heroes successfully does the same, and her metaphorical, loosely structured minimalist stories. The author's gift of prose, as translated by Wilson, illustrates this quite well, in addition to capturing the social, economic, political, gendered, and racial conflict of Haiti (the Diaspora, too, in one short story). I also appreciate Lahens comparison of the Jim Crow US South to political terror in Duvalierist Haiti, thereby connecting the struggles of Haitians at home with people of color abroad. Her stories encompasss Haiti and its complex relationship with the US.

Nostalgie par René Depestre

Enjoy a lovely poem by René Depestre which expresses his nostalgia for Haiti. I found the middle stanza the most moving and powerful. 

Ce n’est pas encore l’aube dans la maison

La nostalgie est couchée à mes côtés.

Elle dort, elle reprend des forces,

Ça fatigue beaucoup la compagnie

D’un nègre rebelle et romantique.

Elle a quinze ans, ou mille ans,

Ou elle vient seulement de naître

Et c’est son premier sommeil

Sous le même toit que mon cœur.

Depuis quinze ans ou depuis des siècles

Je me lève sans pouvoir parler

La langue de mon peuple,

Sans le bonjour de ses dieux païens

Sans le goût de son pain de manioc

Sans l’odeur de son café du petit matin.

Je me réveille loin de mes racines,

Loin de mon enfance,

Loin de ma propre vie.

Depuis quinze ans ou depuis que mon sang

Traversa en pleurant la mer

La première vie que je salue à mon réveil

C’est cette inconnue au front très pur

Qui deviendra un jour aveugle

À force d’user ses yeux verts

À compter les trésors que j’ai perdus.

(René Depestre, Journal d’un animal marin, 1964) 

Romulus

Fernand Hibbert

Romulus, first published in 1908, is Haitian novelist Fernand Hibbert's fictionalized version of the 1883 siege of Miragoâne during the Salomon presidency. Recently translated into English for the first time by Matthew Robertshaw, the novella explores life in the Haitian port town before and after the unrest. As the translator's introduction elucidates, an appeal to discourse is one of the messages of the novel, written at a time of rapidly declining Haitian political stability. Using the politically turbulent period of Salomon's presidency (and the dangers of absolutism and corruption), Hibbert's novel subtly comments on the instability of Haiti in 1908, such as the lack of a Haitian middle-class or commerce class, for instance (often with a sense of humor, too, particularly in the first section of the book, which introduces Romulus, the town, and the pace of life). 

Furthermore, Romulus, the titular character, a police commissioner in Miragoâne, exploits his position for personal gain, as does the Commandant and local merchants, to smuggle goods custom-free through the port, thereby depriving Haiti of revenue. Romulus, and his children through two 'wives' or women, symbolize Haiti (black and mulatto are his wives), and his family, by extension the entire city of Miragoâne, represent a troubled country. However, when relatively free from Port-au-Prince and the 'Restorer,' Salomon, life in Miragoane appears idyllic and lively, because the author compares the town to a beautiful women, yet its corrupted, overtaken, and besieged as a result of the exiles returning from Jamaica, led by Boyer-Bazelais (whose death is fictionalized in this tale) and his Liberal principles. 

Of course, some of his supporters do not even understand the political reasons why they oppose Salomon (Romulus included), and Boyer-Bazelais is operating on the assumption that all the towns of Haiti will rise up in opposition to the tyrant Salomon, including Jacmel, the 'Iron Coast' and Jérémie, where the exile revolutionaries also landed. In short, the Bazelaists planned poorly, and Boyer-Bazelais himself is depicted as foolisly relying on Providence for his movement to succeed. Later, he comes to realize that the true beginnings of liberal government in Haiti will not manifest until a popular demand by the people themselves calls for it, which implies the growth of a middle class and Haitian economic development, which will force politicians and the military to recognize them. 

This in directly tied with the political philosophy of non-involvement, characterized by the Haitian elite Mr. Trévier, an exporter of coffee and logwood (also friend of Romulus and Merlin, a Haitian caught up in the intellectual and political fervor of Bazelaisism) who refuses to get involved in politics, preferring to engage in business and commerce to slowly and gradually support Haitian merchants and capitalists, thereby paving the path for a larger middle class-class (which is an idea recognized by Haitian intellectuals of the late 19th century and early 20th century as one of the reasons Haiti's political system was so turbulent and weak). Yet this path is not a solution to Haiti's woes because, as a result of the political instability and siege, the exile revolutionaries requisition some of his goods and all of his assets are lost in the fires and battles that consume the city. Even the military, the only "organized structure" of Haiti, to paraphrase Trévier, cannot ensure stability for business.

Thus, I read the novel as offering a reconciliation of sorts, between political idealism and revolutionary movements (which, unlike Bazelaism, actually reach out to the masses)  and economic self-determination. Oddly, the author of the text wrote this at at time when foreign economic penetration of Haiti was so completely entrenched, one has no idea how such a goal would be achievable in the early 20th century, and a more radical approach of empowering the peasantry directly is certainly not explored in this text. 

As for the structure of the novel, it makes quite the rapid transition from its early chapters, which focus on Romulus and introduce the town, and then the several chapters on the battles, bombardments, or casualties of the conflict. Including numerous historical figures, Hibbert has an annoying penchant in this novel for long lists of influential exiles and locals who joined the revolutionary movement. I am not sure why he does this, but the translator retains it. Perhaps it is to show how elite-dominated the movement was, thereby limiting its success? I am also perplexed by Hibbert's choice of title, and the brief allusion to Cinette, who dies suddenly. Unless her death is an ominous sign of the forthcoming revolutionary movement, it is out of place.

Regardless, the novel is an interesting exploration of Haiti's political discord with a focus outside of Port-au-Prince. Even at a time when Haiti's export economy is portrayed as healthy, conflict over political office, the spoils of corruption, etc. ruin the chance to develop the economy. Moreover, as a novel first published in 1908, Hibbert succeeds in painting a portrait of provincial town life, with negative as well as positive attributes. Romulus, his large family (which is related to everyone in  Miragoâne by blood or godparents), the influence of the Catholic Church, political favoritism or corruption, as well as the strict class divide reveal an important era in Haitian history, one in which the US Occupation swiftly followed years of Haitian political fratricide. 

Favorite Quotes

"In those days,  Miragoâne was a prosperous and lively town."

"Romulus's defining characteristic consisted in this: he preferred high society. He was perfectly willing to commit himself against a man from the country, no matter how honest, if the man was in a dispute with a notable from the city--in this way Romulus was the most abject of scoundrels."

"Oh! That Romulus, he knew how to sway a person with his political rhetoric. He'd speak of generosity while at the same time working for his own good at the expense of the public. He was quite a modern man."

"Since Dessalines, people had kept trying to restore this poor country, a country that only wanted one thing: to be left in peace."

Children of Heroes

Lyonel Trouillot's Children of Heroes, a short but compelling novel translated by Linda Coverdale, is a depressing but essential read for a feel of Port-au-Prince's urban landscape. The city itself becomes a character as Colin and his sister, Mariela, flee their slum neighborhood after killing their abusive father. From the slums to Boutilliers, the siblings experience the city in its totality for three days on the run, with extensive social commentary, the legacy of the nation and its heroes, and the relentless pursuit of poverty (and the law). The crushing poverty with the consequent class divide in the city of Port-au-Prince matches the dysfunction of Colin's family (and he is mostly the narrator, although I appreciate how the author 'mixes' it up by having a shift in narrator later on, and the creative way dialogue is expressed), the fighting stray dogs, who, like Haiti, fight over scraps. 

Despite the lack of a 'happy' ending, the novel succeeds by breathing life into the world of the two slum children, making their violent, alcoholic father and submissive, already-dead mother realistic, and capturing the dissolution of Haiti under the Place des Heros. The loss of dignity is even more supremely expressed when the protagonists of the novel are photographed by tourists, who, despite the dirty rags the fugitive children wear and their robotic smiles, loves what it represents. In spite of it all, their attempts to escape their world inevitably fails, and the harshness of life, nihilism, and decay continue, under the statues of the heroes of independence.

For those eager to read Haitian literature set in Port-au-Prince, this relatively short novel is an easy read and excellent place to start. One truly gets a feel for the city of Port-au-Prince through the prose and commentary of Trouillot, who manages to tell the story of slum children without condescension or criticism. These very same residents of the slums, the urban counterparts of the moun andeyo, search for dignity, self-respect, inclusion in the social fabric of the city, and become heroic in their struggle. I actually found myself feeling sympathy for some rather unpleasant characters in the novel, including the murdered father, as I am sure other readers will.

Favorite Quotes

"During those first hours after Corazón had died for real, after our race to escape the slum, we walked quietly around the Champ-de-Mars, where the statues of heroes look down indifferently from on high" (28).

"Life, good or bad, doesn't interest people. It's death that makes a splash" (49).

"In the slum, no one trusts visitors" (59).

"In our house, the punches, the screaming, the quarrels and prayers were the finishing touch to our poverty" (61).

"Our life killed Corazón. Our lousy life, so far from hope, and so close to death" (99).

"Not many of our locals have any dealings with the State. For good or ill. The State is far away. Its existence doesn't affect us, and it remembers us only when forced to by some misfortune" (104).

"The inscription beneath the bust pointed out that Carl Brouard had been a great poet. I think poets can go to hell. This one couldn't even manage to get his name on a pretty square" (107).

"It's just a faded piece of cloth fought over by dogs" (134).

All Men Are Mad

All Men Are Mad, the final of the four novels written by the Marcelin brothers is perhaps the most intriguing. Published in 1970 (and translated by Eva Thoby-Marcelin), the novel explores the effects of the anti-superstition campaign of 1942 on Boischandelle, a small town in the hills of Haiti's West. Highly critical of President Lescot and drawing on historical events, the novel is a searing indictment of religious oppression, as well as the role of the state (and clergy) in abusing religion for political and economic ambitions. With a great sense of humor, the narrator in this novel satirizes every aspect of Haitian society, too, so as to not solely ridicule the Haitian government, the Catholic Church, and the Protestants.

In numerous ways, the three faiths (Protestantism, Vodou, and Catholicism) are demonstrated to have much in common, despite the beliefs of Father Le Bellec and Bienaime, the pastor of the Pentecostalist church, which is one of the ways in which the 'madness' of the anti-superstition campaign is displayed. Turning families against one another, dividing, the community, and receiving government support for violence against Protestants as well as Vodou believers, the anti-superstition campaign is clearly about power and influence, not faith, in this novel. Indeed, several characters suspect the Church pushes for the campaign for subversive goals, and to strengthen their hold of 'Black Brittany' (many of the priests are from Brittany, in France) under the threat of Lescot bringing in Canadian priests. The government of Lescot is suspected of organizing gunfire and attacks in Catholic churches (three in Port-au-Prince, one in Boischandelle) and for orchestrating the "anti-superstition' campaign to further the state's own interest, of weakening the Church and getting the Archbishop to consecrate the National Cathedral and declare Haiti's patron saint Our Lady of Perpetual Help (which, like much of the novel, is historical fact). 

On the local level, different actors, religious leaders, and followers of the lwa have their own various reasons for supporting or resisting the violent campaign, led by the French priest, Father Le Bellec, whose Soldiers of Saint Michael commit numerous acts of violence and destruction against Protestants and Vodouisants. Wrapped up in this larger story arc, numerous jealousies, political power grabs, avarice, and follies of the sexual, linguistic, and religious kinds lead to catastrophic crises in the community. Like the previous novels of the Marcelin brothers, change emanating from Port-au-Prince or outsiders brings about significant change at the provincial level with several problems for the residents.

In addition, a Dominican prostitute, the US Ambassador, allusions to the US Marines from the Occupation, satirical portraits of government officials obsessed with Latin and pretentious dialogue, and last but certainly not least, the intervention of the loas themselves add layers of complexity and context to this relatively short novel. Clearly, the Marcelin brothers, when satirizing the 'madness' or folly of Haiti, are tying this to other parts of the world in equal measure or blame, such as the "superstitious" beliefs of the Catholic priest, Le Bellec, or the convulsions and possessions of the Pentecostalist church, both of which reveal the commonalities both faiths share with each other and Vodou. Instead of finding unity or peaceful coexistence, as the Vodouisant do in finding no problem with serving the loas and God, because the loa are servants of God, 'madness' drives the religious communities apart and into conflict over power, influence, and control, much like the heads of nation-states. The appearance of the loas themselves, most significantly Ogou Ferraille, while possessing the son of the hougan of Bassin-Bleu, challenges this folly most directly, by symbolizing the fluidity of religious identity.

In summation, I recommend this as one of the strongest novels by Pierre Marcelin and Philippe Thoby-Marcelin. The translation retains Creole songs, rich proverbs, and satirizes the numerous cases of madness that drive the community apart. Obsession with status, power, rank, and national image turn Haitians against each other in the most folly of follies, the anti-superstition campaign. The novel's conclusion reveals the ultimate bitter truth, previously explained by Estinval, a houngan who renounces and supports the campaign, who explains the conflict as a battle of father and mother, which will end soon in a reconciliation of sorts. This is exactly how the novel concludes, with the intrigue over and the President coming out of the situation more pompous and proud of himself than ever, having won for Haiti a patron saint to improve the nation's image and that of his own regime. The multiple levels of 'madness' at the local and national level, from the Justice of the Peace's incomprehensible use of Latin (which inhibits communication) to the misguided and immoral camapgisn against Vodou, exemplify the dichotomies of Haitian society, which, as Marlene Daut and Karen Richman argue, are universal problems beyond the Caribbean.

Favorite Quotes

"Macdonald Origene could boast all he wanted that he was a Cartesian, he kept on being impressed by the surprising cures the houngan effected" (28).

"Still, he meant no harm, and the fact is that color prejudice has so permeated the language of white people, bringing into it over the centuries, together with the confused notions of race, civilization, "primitiveness," a whole system of cliches and expressions unfavorable to the black man, that it would not be fair to accuse Father Le Bellec of racism" (96).

"Haiti is a land fertile in myths; it produces new ones every blessed day. And the credulity of the peasants, like that of the Breton priests, is infinite" (168).

The Pencil of God

While the third novel of the Marcelin brothers is consistent thematically with the previous two this novel is the weaker of the three. Retaining the rich proverbs, humor, and small community focus of the former novels, The Pencil of God tells the tale of Diogene Cyprien, a Haitian mulatto businessman of Saint Marc, who refuses to cease his amorous affairs and because of his irascible temperament and appetite, loses his family in the process. 

Full of inter-class relations, social commentary (the president of Haiti in this story, clearly Lescot, seized German-owned businesses and has hurt economically many employees and partners of the German Hartmann and Company, and faces additional criticism of corruption and his ego), and the community of Saint Marc's (about 10,000 souls) fears of demons and the contrast between Catholicism and Vodou are the major aspects of the novel's relatively simple plot. 

In spite of the novel's provincial and specific cultural setting, it explores the universal themes of fate and morality, the congruence of Catholic and Vodou beliefs on the rise and fall of the Cyprien family, and the shared concern of Catholics and devotees of the lwa regarding sorcery and proper social behavior. Again, like earlier novels by the Marcelin brothers, Vodou, sorcery, baka, possession, and the dynamics of Vodou/Catholicism co-existence are exploited here for a readily identifiable Haitian community, one in which life and death are seen as ordained by the spirits and what is written by God's pencil cannot be changed. In this case, Diogene Cyprien never escapes his fate, even when his dying mother requests a change in his moral behavior. Like the woodcutter of a story alluded to in the novel's conclusion, Diogene's vices haunt him and lead to irrevocable negotiations and moral compromises, causing a tragic outcome. 

While the community of Saint Marc (both Catholic, Vodou, and the melange) attributes Diogene's problems to an alleged pact with the devil (a series of rumors arise about his sorcery, which can all be traced to Ti-Joseph, a former employee of Diogene who holds a grudge because of Diogene's attempt to blame the pregnancy of Lourdes on him), these accusations of sorcery and pacts with Satan are, as in the previous novels, linked to a disturbance of social harmony by Diogene Cyprien, who goes too far in his amorous adventures, is willing to exploit and sacrifice others, such as Ti-Joseph, and lacks any prudence, which is wife's uncle, Tonton Georges, tries to impart. Perhaps there is too much Ogou in Diogene, and he ultimately fulfills the 'fate' established for him. 

As for why I consider this novel one of the weaker works by the Marcelins, the novel appears too reminiscent of The Beast of the Haitian Hills, and the authors introduce members of the Cyprien family far too late into the narrative for it to be so believable that Diogene cares for his legitimate children. His son, Marc-Antoine, his mother-in-law, and his wife who he causes so much grief are never presented as fully-fleshed characters, and seem too marginal to support the novel's depressing end. Other characters in this provincial town community are also given the short end of the stick, such as Lourdes, Ti-Joseph, and even the French priest, Laennec, who is quite relevant to the story given his support for anti-superstition campaigns designed to uproot Vodou. Instead of the better portrait of the community seen in their first two novels, this story loses that all-encompassing cast and narration. 

The Beast of the Haitian Hills

"And he was annoyed by the realization that these superstitions were so strongly rooted because those of his own class had taken no serious steps to improve the pitiful living conditions of the Haitian peasant" (50).

La Bête de Musseau, the second novel of the Marcelin brothers, translated by Peter C. Rhodes, is quite similar to their first. The Beast of the Haitian Hills adds the class dynamics of Haitian society with horror, for an engaging story set in the peasant community of Musseau, in the hills outside of Port-au-Prince in the late 1930s. . Like the former work, the focus of the novel is on the community and the effects of intrusion or social disorder inevitably have. Naturally, themes of Vodou, class divisions, familial and community intrigue, and sorcery suffuse the novel, which follows the life of Morin Dutilleul, a mulatto, urban, educated Haitian of the elite. Morin Dutilleul romanticizes rural life in Haiti after spending summers in the hills with his family as a child, and dreams of becoming a planter like his free mulatto ancestors of the colonial era, eventually letting this dream and his amorous affairs cause his wife distress and death. Once free, he settles in Musseau, buys land, disrespects and insults the peasantry,  refuses to share his spring, loses his vision of idyllic life, and brings about disorder through his invasive presence (and disrespect for the loas), symbolized by the Cigouave, a mythical beast described as part dog, part man. 

What follows in the narrative is harsh social commentary on the Haitian elite (who distance themselves from the peasantry and are ultimately to blame for their ignorance and poverty), numerous instances of humorous dialogue, and division within the family and neighborhood as brothers turn against each other, greedy Vodou priests exploit the faith, and Morin himself never escapes his guilt over his wife's death, plunging into the abyss of alcoholism. Morin is presented as a highly unlikable figure, raping his servant, Sinette, talking down to Desilus, an experienced farmer he hires, insulting the justice of the peace, Delisca, and warring with Bossuet for trying to treat him as an equal. The ultimate sin of Morin is cutting down the mapou tree consecrated to Legba, and the powerful neighbor, Bossuet, a suspected bocor, disappears, and allegedly returns with the mythical Cigouave, a beast from the caves of Forban Gorge, to terrorize the community. As the characters turn on each other (Ti-Charles, brother of Bossuet, is even attacked by the 'beast,' which Morin initially believes to be no more than a dog, but then sees the beast himself), the the 'balance' of the community is thrown asunder as fear, ambition, greed, and violation of tradition leads to the downfall of multiple characters. 

Thus, I prefer to see the Cigouave as a metaphor for the destruction of the community's values and traditions, as Ti-Charles wants to marry his godsister (something forbidden in the community) and suffers an attack from the Cigouave, losing his genitalia, Morin is responsible for his wife's death, Horace turns his back on the loas solely for Catholicism (causing his wife to lose the child in her whom, for she does not obey the ancestor's instructions in her dream), and Sinette plotted with Desilus (who believes his own son, sent to Petionville, is a lougawou draining his life) to turn Morin into a lover she could exploit, only to be cursed by Baron Samedi and forced to flee. All suffer the consequences of possession, disfigurement, death, and family dissolution, with loas or 'evil spirits' such as the 'beast' (the Cigouave) representing the conflict of interests, neuroses, and emotional turmoil of the characters. 

The conclusion of the novel ends with the community restoring its balance, yet the character blamed for controlling the Cigouave somehow escapes judgment, and actually succeeds in taking on Irma, the young lover of the brother, Charles, he is suspected of killing with the 'beast.' Morin, the invading force of Port-au-Prince in this rural community, is haunted by his actions and meets an ignoble end, with the Cigouave on his trail. In a sense the novel seems to articulate a pro-peasant sensibility, with the urban mulatto, Morin, as nothing more than disruptive, a predator of 'beast' to the Haitian peasantry. Nonetheless, the novel contains so much nuance and personal stories from the residents of Musseau to hastily complicate this narrative, since Rossini, the houngan, is hardly impartial, nor is Delisca initially on the side of justice, but favoring the 'law' (which was made for and by people like Morin, which is why Delisca initially sides with Morin against Musseau when he cuts down Legba's mapou). Last but certainly not least, Bossuet himself exploits his image as a sorcerer to take what he wants, exert influence, and even attain prestige and friendships with members of the Haitian urban elite. Things are not so black and white in rural Haiti, as this author shows (even Delisca, in the end, allegedly sides with Bossuet, who reappears after Morin returns to Port-au-Prince).

Much could be said solely about the approach of the authors to Vodou in this text. Clearly, the worldview of the Vodouissants in this novel is not removed from reality, but part of it for the community, and clearly rooted in the peasantry's sense of self and health. When the loas 'mount,' even Morin is not entirely removed from the experience,  and fatalism is not unique to the followers of the loas, but also the 'strict' Catholics, such as Horace and Sinette, who suffer the consequences of not honoring the lwa. Baron Samedi's prominence in this story, as the head of the Gede spirits, is also noteworthy, given how Legba's anger should have been more central because of the mapou tree. Yet, Papa Legba seems conspicuously absent, despite references to the crossroads and his importance in all Vodou ceremonies, maybe symbolizing the lost of harmony and communication in the community, but even Morin comes to see himself as Baron Samedi in the horrific scene of rape and alcoholic excess. 'Ogoun Badagros' also surfaces in the novel's conclusion, as the guardian spirit of the dying Desilus who then mounts the son of Desilus, perhaps appropriate given how Desilus's temperant seems to match this loa. While some may emphasize the 'negative' treatment of the Haitian religion in this text, it reads to me as more nuanced and supportive of the faith, while critical of the Haitian elite and the forces that trap the peasantry in material poverty (which, unfortunately, includes some 'witchcraft' tied to avarice, as in the case of Bossuet or Tonton Bossa in the previous novel).

Here are some of my favorite quotations from the text, which illustrate the richness of proverbs, local wisdom, humor, and social commentary in this novel.

"The painful and savage struggle of the small mountain share-cropper with the elements was a closed book to him" (3).

"His ancestors, like all Haitians of their rank, had been planters long ago, and he remembered his with nostalgia, and considered his present status as a sign of decadence" (4).

"Since he had come into contact with the peasants, he now found them on close inspection, too uncouth and poverty-stricken and, despite this, 'without the slightest respect for well-to-do folk'" (17).

"He even deplored their presence in the countryside, though he knew perfectly well that it belonged more to them than to him and his class" (18).

"And Morin finally understood that, despite the modest air he put on, this peasant intended to deal with him on an equal footing, and this realization did not fail to irritate him"  (23).

"Appointed by the central government, the rural police chiefs are empowered with complete authority for the maintenance of order in the communities over which they preside" (30). 

"'You also forget many well-to-do people have long ago abandoned faith in their family gods. Just because they sometimes have a lighter skin than ours, they forget that they too are children of Yayoute, our common African ancestor, and assume they have no more obligations toward the gods. But the loas never forget what is their due'" (73).

 "The bull shits, thinking he will soil the pasture, but he only dirties his own hind quarters" (142).

"For some time now the atmosphere of this peasant setting―where the natural and the supernatural, far from being dialectically opposed to each other, were bound together in an indivisible whole―had made him extremely sensitive" (178). 

"The Cigouave never howled, and the village of Musseau, undisturbed, went on sleeping peacefully" (210). 

Canapé-Vert

Philippe Thoby-Marcelin, co-author of the novel

"Doesn't the proverb say that bad luck is the young brother of the wretched?"

Despite the translator's racist introduction to Haiti, Canapé-Vert stands out in Haitian literature as the first novel to be translated into English. Winner of a Latin American literary award, Canapé-Vert tells the story of a peasant community in the eponymous area, right outside of Port-au-Prince, sometime during World War II. Steeped in oral traditions, Vodou, and Creole phrases and song, the Marcelin brothers establish the encompassing narrative around the trials of the community after a prominent houngan makes a deal with Baron Samedi in return for wealth. His sons become zombies, his wife distraught, and the man's evil sorcery for greed and prestige costs the entire community their fragile equilibrium. 

While at times perpetuating a stereotype of the Haitian peasantry as superstitious, accepting of their lot, and fatalistic, the authors endeavor to show how the worldview of the peasantry is not divorced from that of the reader for explaining the 'curse' on the community and the toll it takes. While they may attribute some of the misfortune to their loas, or a failure to care for the loa, the characters are ultimately responsible for their actions and the authors show how greed, lust, love, depression, and power relations impact the community's harmony. At first, I was put off by the inclusion of numerous characters into the short novel (225 pages), but the large cast becomes inseparable to show how sorcery, greed, and social cohesion are all rooted in the familial and communal spaces of peasant society. 

Furthermore, the authors demonstrate how Catholicism is certainly not absent from the peasantry's world, given their 'bush priest,' attendance at Catholic services, and use of Latin in funerals and Vodou ceremonies. And while some Vodou priests are guilty of 'pious fraud' and and clearly not that devout (their desire for money often overrides concern for their followers), the case of the Breton priest called upon for the funeral of Grande Da's son shows how Christian religion can be a tool for personal ambition and avarice, too. Thus, in my opinion, the text approaches Vodou in a balanced and respectful way, showing how the 'supernatural' beliefs of the peasant community are not disconnected from their earthly world, but personified by the characters themselves. 

Despite the dissolution of families and numerous deaths in the novel, the author's include comedic relief, too. Previlon, the gambling drinker (and son of Grande Da) provides numerous instances of humor throughout the story, although quick to blame his misfortune in gambling on the 'mystère' haunting him. The riddles, cockfight, dances, coumbite, and wakes are depicted as moments of light-hearted solidarity and radiant positivity of the peasantry, which is completely lacking in the lower-class neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Bois-de-chêne, where most women are prostitutes, the police regularly beat and arrest Sanite's cousin, and the houngan is one of those 'pious frauds' who tries to dupe Sanite (which is one of the hilarious sections of the story, as the priest's friend masquerades as Nibo to fool Sanite for 50 gourdes). Thus, when one juxtaposes the urban versus rural dichotomy, the peasantry, despite the poverty, disease, and abuse by the authorities of the state, appear to have a stronger communal-basis to tackling their poverty. In addition, there is a light-heartedness and sense of humor in the narration and the peasant community that is absent from the gritty, dangerous neighborhood Sanite briefly resides in with her prostitute relative. 

In addition, the experience of Josaphat, who returns from Cuba after his father, Tonton Bossa, dies due to the failure of his to maintain his deal with Baron Samedi, becomes ensnared in this 'doom' the community faces as others become sacrificed to appease the loa. The abuse of power committed by the head of the rural police is also integral to this, given how he is behind the scenes, stirring emotions and exploiting the landless in order to find greater profits. Thus, sorcery in this tale is tied with greed, and a failure to sustain social cohesion. Josaphat, who returns to Haiti from Cuba as Jose, survived extreme exploitation as a cane cutter, also representing an uglier side to the Haitian countryside as it loses people to Cuba and the Dominican Republic, another form of family dissolution and communal breakdown (in this case, Josaphat was forced out of his family by his own father, who abandons him and his mother, Ti-Tante, to pursue the sister of Grande Da, the aforementioned manbo).

Last but certainly not least, the novel is interesting in its omission of the bourgeois families of the town, whose influence is certainly felt but are conspicuously absent. There are allusions to tenant farmers, and, as previously mentioned, corrupt government officials, but the elites living in Port-au-Prince never make an appearance in the novel. Some women from the peasantry are sent off to work as maids for these families, but the families of the same class background as the Marcelin brothers are never present, unless one counts the young houngan from a lower bourgeois family. Why is that? Perhaps it reflects a desire on the part of the authors to fully capture the realities of life of the peasantry in the countryside, without mentioning the elite families, who are written off as "not understanding" the worldview of the peasantry when Dorvilus never explains why he could not bring in his dog, rabid with rabies, after the murders in the novel's end. Nonetheless, I am eager to read the Marcelin brothers's next novel, which explores the topic of a Haitian upper-class man choosing to leave the city to live in a peasant community. 

When the Tom-Tom Beats

Enjoy Jacques Roumain's "When the Tom-Tom Beats", translated by African-American literary giant Langston Hughes, courtesy of Poetry Nook. For another translation from May 1943, check out Poetry Foundation's page for a version from L.C. Kaplan. It is worth nothing that the water blends with the audience of the poem in the Hughes translation, but Kaplan's omits that. Hughes, who wrote similar poetry, seems to capture the deeper meaning of Roumain's poetry and its message for readers of African descent, particularly mixed-race readers who reject their African ancestry but cannot escape it. 

Your heart trembles in the shadows, like a face reflected in troubled water

The old mirage rises from the pit of the night

You sense the sweet sorcery of the past:

A river carries you far away from the banks,

Carries you toward the ancestral landscape.

Listen to those voices singing the sadness of love

And in the mountain, hear that tom-tom panting like the breast of a young black girl

Your soul is this image in the whispering water where your fathers bent their dark faces

Its hidden movements blend you with the waves

And the white that made you a mulatto is this bit of foam cast up, like spit, upon the shore

The Other Side of the Sea

"In the possibility of changing life into the dew of hope for all."

Louis-Philippe Dalembert's The Other Side of the Sea, translated by Robert H. McCormick, uses magical realism, Biblical allusions, and Vodou symbolism to tell the story of Port-au-Prince and exile from the time of US Occupation to Titig, or Baby Doc. Falling under what some scholars refers to as the aesthetics of degradation, the novel contains numerous metaphors and breath-taking prose that describe the fetid decay of Haiti's capital city. The 1937 Massacre (which seems to compare it to the Babylonian Captivity as Haitians fled for their lives across the Massacre River), the Duvalier dynasty, and the plight of Haitian boatpeople and the persistent desire to emigrate permeate the text, across time. 

Given how centered the narrative is on the city and the sea, Port-au-Prince (and its gradual decay) emerges as a character in the text that symbolizes the nation, just as Noubot and Jonas, the grandmother and her grandson, symbolize Haiti. McCormick also translates Dalembert's stream of consciousness (maybe that is not the correct term, correct me if I am wrong) sections on the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage in each chapter of the story, connecting the plight of Haitians abroad with that of the dehumanizing Middle Passage. Vodou also infuses the text by drawing on Vodou and African cosmology for "the other side of the sea" and describing a return to Ginen although most of central characters are not Vodou practitioners. 

As for magical realism, it is used with a light touch, and is particularly powerful for satirical purposes when Dalembert criticizes the Duvalier dictatorship or the US government's response to the boatpeople crisis and how the sharks and killer whales feasted on Haitian bodies (again, tied to the Middle Passage and the sharks that followed the slave ships across the Atlantic). This is probably the most powerful and rich book on the breakdown of Port-au-Prince and the family and communities contained therein, torn asunder within and without as the young, the fruit, are forced to leave and the elders, symbolized by Grannie, wither and take the past with them. 

Again, this is consistent with the Biblical themes and reality of decline in Port-au-Prince, as its overcrowded, filthy, and divided residents live a bleak existence and the others, on the other side of the water, are gradually forgotten or forget. Port-au-Prince as Sodom and Gomorrah, if you will, struck by hurricanes, disasters, inequality, and terror from Duvalier, Trujillo, and the US. As a novel, this is quite an interesting literary exploration of Port-au-Prince's history with strong Biblical overtones.

Favorite Quotations

"As for the whites, they would stay in the city for a whole generation. They had serious expressions on their faces. They were arrogant, disrupting our customs without excusing themselves, putting everyone on the military rhythm of their language." (12)

"The trouble with this story was not so much the bitter experience nor the other language over there that made us feel more like foreigners. It was rather staying on the same land. In short, to not really have left" (32).

"The Syro-Lebanese, the Jews, and the Palestinians, having arrived poorer than Job, made their fortune and brought their families over" (32).

"During that time, either you toed the line or his thugs would turn you into a diversion to beat the heat" (41).

"He wasn't part of that group of men who take their house for a hotel-restaurant, only entering to eat, sleep, and yell at wife and kids" (42).

"The entire city was living withdrawn into itself in a fear until then unknown. Formerly so beautiful, the night of the city belonged from then on to silence, one punctuated from time to time by calls for help from a mother, a female companion, a brother whom everyone pretended not to hear. Tongues seemed cast in lead while individual disappearances took place at vespers" (50).

"The city, if you can call it that, this morass where millions of humans live together, and three times as many pigs. All wallowing in the shit. One on top of the other. And that desire to vomit, in the name of God, that never comes to pass. He reels. His gait wavers" (61).

"These two women provided an equilibrium for me that I hadn't known until then. Grannie was the roots, Maite the branch that invited me, every day, toward new adventures in the sky" (96).

"But the city would be plagued for a long time after the events with the aftereffects of that period where an entire family would disappear on a simple anonymous denunciation" (100).

"The government of the Promised-Land-in-Spite-of-Itself wasn't long in reacting, either. It gave the green light to its naval commander, who launched dozens of gunboats filled with soldiers, armed to the teeth, with orders to shoot on sight. By all means possible, the invaders had to be turned away and the local population reassured since the presidential election was drawing near" (113). 

Heading South

"People are rich because their parents are rich, it's as simple as that. And their parents are rich because their grandparents were rich. And so on. And when you get down to the source of all that richness, you'll always find someone who made their fortune by robbing from the public purse. That's Haiti for you, and its not my job to change the way this country is run."

Heading South resembles Dining With the Dictator in so far that both novels are full of sensual detail, compas bands, and the shadow of Duvalier. What distinguishes Heading South, however, is its exploration of sex tourism in Haiti, focusing on northern women coming to Haiti for sex with younger men (although there is one case of an American male who comes to Haiti for women). Dany Laferrière's novel uses Haitian art, the notion of the romanticized primitive, Vodou, Haitian pride, racial stereotypes, gender dynamics, and the harsh realities of Haitian social structure for satirical humor. Instead of solely condemning sexual tourism, the nuances of the novel illustrate cases of agency in the case of some young men and women, such as Tanya, Fanfan, Charlie and Legba. 

While sex tourism is juxtaposed with foreign penetration and exploitation of Haiti, clearly there are cases of collaboration and examples of social climbing or weakening of the social pyramid as some take advantage of European or North American women for money and access to privilege. The novel's structure better illustrates the varying reasons for why people engage in sex tourism by moving freely between several characters whose lives intersect in Haiti, as well as criticizing the exclusive Bellevue Circle and the local elite who mix with foreigners within it. Overall, a humorous and intriguing novel from an established writer whose novel will make you laugh and cry.

Dining with the Dictator

"Once she said that in this God-forsaken country, there are only zombies and sharks. All the real men are in the cemetery. Her lips draw back in disdain, and she spits on the ground, in the direction of the National Palace."

Dining with the Dictator, the sequel to the excellent An Aroma of Coffee, explores the life of the little boy from Petit-Goave who is now a teenager in Port-au-Prince. Living with his mother and numerous aunts, our narrator is no longer the sickly, innocent boy living with his grandmother. This novel begins within a sort of meta-narrative structure where the author is living in Miami, and while taking a bath, recounts a formative experience from April 1971, when Duvalier died. 

Those searching for more continuity between this novel, translated by David Hormel, and An Aroma of Coffee, will find this tale has numerous literary allusions and quotations of the poetry of Magloire Saint-Aude, which thematically matches plot development over this weekend (structured like scenes in a film). Laferrière's novel also uses the streets, people, smells, rains, bars, and atmosphere of Port-au-Prince to create an additional character. So, those interested in Port-au-Prince in the literary imagination will be pleasantly surprised here, given how well fleshed out Port-au-Prince and its landmarks are in this short novel of an important date in Haitian history.

In addition to the narrator (a fictionalized version of the author himself), we have two "families" that are emblematic of Haiti under Papa Doc. For instance, the narrator's mother and aunt, keep secrets from each other, treat the teenage narrator like a little boy, worship his father (currently in exile), but they display a type of solidarity that Laferrière admires in the women who raised him. In contrast, the teen prostitutes living in the home of Miki across the street call themselves friends, but are constantly fighting, plundering men, as Choupette proudly proclaims. These young women protect the narrator, helping him on his sexual discovery and revealing another aspect of Duvalierist Haiti as the 1960s finally hit the island, to paraphrase Laferrière. 

Given the text's praise for the surrealist nothing is quite as it seems, the lives of these young prostitutes are linked to the explosion of popular music, flashy sharks (the Tonton Macoutes), compas bands, nightlife, and a culture of fear and exploitation that cuts across both ways. The effects of Duvalier and the sharks pulling each other down collectively drags down upon Haitian society in this novel, yet the prostitutes are far from powerless. Indeed, gender relations are more complex than they seem, although violence against women is embedded in this world of sharks and zombies.

Though some may criticize the novel for not dealing enough with the state, or Duvalier himself, it's quite clear through the narrator's nightmarish dream of being tortured in Fort Dimanche, as well as the level of fear and spying going on among the people of Port-au-Prince, that the dictator has an all-seeing eye over the population. Furthermore, the relationship between Magloire Saint-Aude and Duvalier is another dimension of the text, demonstrating how things are never quite what they appear to be, whether that is a troubled, homeless youth leading a sheltered teen into trouble, the erotic escapades of young women searching for a flashy existence, or the absence of politics in the music of leading compas bands, such as Skah Shah. 

The Roving Tree

Elsie Augustave's debut novel, The Roving Tree, is an accessible novel on the experience of a Haitian-American woman raised by whites who adopt her. The novel's emphasis on women and the protagonist, Iris Odys, navigates the protagonist's identity crisis and development while criticizing race relations in the US, the Haitian class system, and Mobutu's Zaire. Given some of the similarities in literary depictions of Duvalier and Mobutu, Augustave's novel is at least innovative for showing the parallels in the two dictators.

Unfortunately, this novel suffers from its very accessibility in that Augustave seems to "dumb" things down significantly. The novel begins to feel more like a simple introduction to Haiti in some ways, although Iris's experiences in Senegal and Zaire was a admirable plot development that thematically matches and completes Iris's great-grandmother's words. As in other immigrant literature, the central theme is one of identity, and Augustave's novel succeeds on that front. Vodou is also very important to advancing this story, an aspect of Haitian-American literature sometimes neglected or ignored.

The Infamous Rosalie

"Only our gestures of revolt truly belong to us."

Trouillot's The Infamous Rosalie stands out as being one of the few works of Haitian literature to explore the experience of women in colonial slavery. Partly inspired by the true story of an Arada midwife who killed 70 infants to prevent them from becoming slaves, Trouillot's novel focuses on Lisette and the family of women who survived the horrors of the Middle Passage and slavery to care for her in the north of Saint Domingue in the mid-18th century. Drawing from history and her own imagination, the novel predicts Haiti, uses the Makandal-inspired poison hysteria, the Maroons, and the social structure of Saint Domingue to craft a believable and lyrical novel. Reclaiming the role of women in Saint Domingue as possessing agency in the face of unspeakable brutality is an impressive feat, and will, in time, be followed by future novels exploring women and slavery in Haitian history. 

An Aroma of Coffee

"Da says we're not truly dead until there's no one left on earth to remember our name."

Dany Laferrière's An Aroma of Coffee, translated from the French by David Homel, is a free-structured account drawing on the author's own experiences growing up in Petit-Goâve in 1963 with his grandmother, Da. Drawing on folklore, memories, and life in provincial Haiti, Laferrière tells the story of a sickly boy and his loving grandmother. His father is already in Port-au-Prince, where his mother and aunts go after his grandfather, a speculator in coffee, expires. Indeed, this richly detailed and short narrative uses poetic language and humor to describe the landscape, weather, soccer and pranks of the town's boys, cockfights, the town, and the coming decline of this lifestyle through migration to Port-au-Prince, the crash in coffee prices (which prevented the boy's grandfather from ever putting to use any Chicago tractors!), and the separation of family members. While certainly an account full of nostalgia, a careful reader knows this world is not as perfect as it seems. Indeed, the police and military arrests of men who talk politics and loss of land and homes suffice to demonstrate some of the severe problems of this society.

In addition to functioning as a rather free-formed story about a boy growing up in provincial Haiti before the inevitable move to Port-au-Prince and experience of loss, the tale is centered on the community, the idyllic "timelessness" of life in Petit-Goâve and simple pleasures, such as communal partaking of strong, Haitian coffee. The town madwomen, a dogfish, tales of sorcery, dream interpretation, and a sort of Rashomon effect are explored to fully create a vivid world reminiscent of tales my grandmother told me in my youth. Moreover, the lack of a strong chronological structure facilitates the "feel" and aesthetics of the novel, which allows one to learn the "whole" experience of this coming of age novel. 

While reading, I could not help but think of Naipaul's Miguel Street, which is really a collection of short stories exploring connecting individuals on the outskirts of Port-of-Spain. While Naipaul's work is certainly more of an urban community, similarities in how both writers create a character out of the community is laudable. In addition, Maryse Condé's Crossing the Mangrove came to mind when Old Bones (a nickname for the boy who narrates the story) tells the story of Sylphise and Big Simon, since each member of the community has their own theory about the girl's alleged death and her father's role. 

Katia D. Ulysse's Drifting

It was a blustery dawn when we began our four-hour plane ride to Port-au-Prince. The plane burst with college-aged sets in matching Pray for Haiti Now! and Save Haiti Today! T-shirts. They boasted about their plans for saving the so-called poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. They congratulated one another on their novel ideas. They would do what Haitians could not do for themselves. They would Tweet and post proof of their hard work on social networking sites (16).

Katia D. Ulysse has written an engaging debut novel, Drifting. While structurally the novel is reminiscent of Danticat's The Dew Breaker, and even thematically it reminds one of Danticat's first novel on Haitian immigrant women, Ulysse explores how uprooting the immigrant experience can be in novel ways. The various women and their families are tied together by their roots in Puits Blain, and each experience the effects of immigration in New York differently. Drawing on rural Haiti, the class system, Vodou and folklore, Ulysse shows how immigrating to the US, while often seen as the only real option, does not always retain or strengthen families or improve one's economic station, as evidenced by Marianne and Sagesse, who never experience the so-called "American Dream."

The other families also experience the lack of the so-called "paradise" of New York City through poverty, the struggles of assimilation, a predatory ESL teacher, and family discord. Back in Haiti, things are no better, given the loss of heritage, land, and further decline experienced by many families (Boursicault's funeral business, making him the wealthiest man in the land, is full of dark humor, although he ends up purchasing most of Madan Casseus's land).

Ulysse also has a sense of humor for "difficult" portions of the novel, such as the chapter, "Bereavement Pay." This chapter explores, with a sense of humor, how Haitians in the US found it difficult to take time from work to look for their kin after the earthquake. In addition, the author goes out of her way to allude to popular music, history, religious themes, and folklore to make the story more believable and pertinent to the theme of loss as a result of immigration in the US. The use of Creole, the language dilemma of Creole versus French, the X-signers (the illiterate poor who sacrifice everything to send their children to school) as well as gender roles complicate the narrative. Indeed, while there might be some flexibility and greater "freedom" for women in America, sexism follows them.

Unfortunately, Ulysse does not dedicate more of the pages to Michelle and Freda, whose tale begins the novel. The two sisters experience the 2010 earthquake, but none of the future chapters of the book explore the ramifications of the earthquake. This begs the question, why include the first chapter in the book? Although it certainly aligns well with other themes and families in the text, it is disappointing that more of the book does not address that catastrophe. Perhaps it is one of those cases where more is said with less words.

Dimitry Elias Léger and Edwidge Danticat

Enjoy a discussion between Haitian-American writers Dimitry Elias Léger and Edwidge Danticat on the former's debut novel, God Loves Haiti. The rise of Haitian-American literature is one fascinating trend I hope to continue following. Next on my list of writers is Katia Ulysse. 

God Loves Haiti

"And picking apart the nation's colorful, sorrowful, and thrilling history is all Haitians do. It's a sport, the fucking national pastime. History is all we have to take pride in, since our greatest achievement occurred in 1804 and we haven't contributed fuck-all to humanity in the intervening two centuries save a few good books and paintings."

Just finished Dimitry Elias Léger's God Loves Haiti, an addictive novel worth reading that imagines post-earthquake Haiti through Dantean lens. It's also part of a flourishing literary output by Haitian-American writers, such as Roxane Gay's acclaimed An Untamed State. While the Kindle version seems to have some errors, this short novel can be read in a day, which may be one of its weaknesses. It also struck me as strange that Alain did not notify his parents after surviving the earthquake, and how they could not know he was alive despite him appearing on television for his leadership role in the Place Pigeon refugee camp (appearing with 'Steve,' called Hollywood by Alain, who is based on Sean Penn). Furthermore, the former president based on Aristide lacked any real relevance to this tale, so I am not sure why his presence was included in the novel.

However, the novel's characters are likable and the perhaps not so subtle commentary on Preval, Aristide the international community, and the response to the horrendous goudou-goudou are necessary to counter the horrific views of many abroad, such as the infamous Pat Robertson. Indeed, Monsignor Dorélien believes that Haitians are among God's chosen people, that the earthquake that destroyed their world was a test like those of Biblical times. Léger also has a way of praising Haiti and the people without romanticizing its troubled history. For instance, he writes about how beautiful Port-au-Prince is as Alain's car is flying with him in tow above the city during the earthquake: 

From the sky, strangely, Port-au-Prince looked uncommonly beautiful. He hadn't visited Paris yet, but surely Paris couldn't be as beautiful as his hometown, this jewel of the Caribbean, this diamond in the rough, when viewed from the driver's seat of a car launched two hundred meters above sea level. Awesome. Natasha, he thought, I have got to show her this.

Indeed, one of the more memorable scenes in the novel is the President's vision of himself and all preceding Haitian heads of state at the gates of Heaven, making their case to Saint Peter. Dessalines and Duvalier have some interesting exchanges with Saint Peter in that scene. Likewise, the author does an excellent job capturing the city of Port-au-Prince and the scenes during and after the earthquake. It was depressing but light reading that breathed life into some of Port-au-Prince's landmarks (the National Cathedral assumes great importance for Natasha, and the novel's final scene) and Haitian history. In truth, one should see Port-au-Prince as more than the setting for this love triangle amid such suffering, but as a character whose shapes, contours, and architecture affect the lives of the President, Alain, and Natasha. Life in the tent camps, a love story, Haiti's relationship with the Dominican Republic, death, imperialism, and the significance of history in Haiti as a 'national pastime' all emerge as important themes that shape the novel. 

Impressively, Legér manages to create humor in the most tragic and unexpected places, such as the President's trip to the UN for a meeting with the real powers (the US, France, and other powers on the UN Security Council) who orchestrate the relief effort and pull the strings on the Haitian political system. In the end, people of all walks of life are thrown together as a result of the last thing Haitians expected to turn on them, the earth, and the results are seen in the collective mourning, grave digging teams, tent organizations and their leaders, and ultimate triumph of love and solidarity in the face of insurmountable obstacles, which provides the opportunities for redemption for the President, Alain, and Natasha.

René Depestre with Mao

Source

René Depestre with Mao Zedong in 1961. As Haitian History on Tumblr states, Depestre is a former Communist,now living in France. Though I have only read Festival of the Greasy Pole, the more famous Hadriana dans Tous mes Rêves has been praised and summarized for me by a young reader from Jacmel. For more information, read the original source of this photo, "La France et Haiti."