In January, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked the Caribbean island of Haiti, effectively catapulting the country to the forefront of our television screens and our consciousness. But Haiti has traditionally engendered fascination, through its vibrant culture, rich history, political upheaval, and the sheer beauty of its Creole and French-speaking population.
In addition to rekindling widespread interest in Haiti, the news coverage has reasserted many difficult questions. Considered the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the world's first black republic, Haiti has long been plagued by poverty, disease, illiteracy, and unstable government. To better understand this complex country and its contemporary struggles, however, it is important to first understand its history. The following bibliography includes both fiction and nonfiction suggestions that shed light on Haiti's turbulent past as well as its unique cultural heritage.
FICTION
Bell, Madison Smartt
All Souls' Rising. New York: Pantheon Books, 1995. 530p. ISBN 9780679439899.
The French colony of Haiti (then Saint Dominigue) prospered in the eighteenth-century with the import of African slaves and the production of coffee and sugar plantations. In 1791, a revolt led by the charismatic ex-slave Toussaint L'Ouverture resulted in Haiti's declaration of independence in 1804. It is the only successful slave rebellion in the Americas. Bell's acclaimed fictional series, which continues with Master of the Crossroads (2000) and The Stone that the Builder Refused (2004), follows the lives of several individuals, including L'Ouverture, during the bloody years of the Haitian Revolution. With his skillful evocation of time and place, Bell also reminds us of the real men and women who fought valiantly in the face of oppression. For an expertly researched nonfiction account of the same period, try Laurent Dubois's Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (2004).
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World: A Novel. Translated by Harriet De Onis. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006 (c1949). 190p. ISBN 9780374530112.
Not long after the liberation of Haiti from France, the country faltered under the rule of King Henri-Christophe. Born a slave in Grenada, Henri-Christophe fought alongside Toussaint L'Ouverture during the Haitian Revolution and was eventually crowned the first black king in the Western Hemisphere. In this literary evocation, his rise and fall is seen through the eyes of the slave Ti Noel, who witnessed a regime marked by corruption, voodoo, and rampant racism. The Cuban writer Carpentier, who died in 1980, was a major voice in contemporary Latin American literature. He is particularly noted for the use of magical and surreal elements (magical realism) in his novels, of which The Kingdom of This World is a prime example.
Danticat, Edwidge
The Dew Breaker. New York: Knopf, 2004. 244p. ISBN 9781400041145.
Dew Breakers are the men who arrive near dawn, just as the dew is settling on the morning grass, to spirit one away from home and family. In her novel, Haitian-born Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory) unveils the life of a former "dew breaker," or state torturer, who once thrived under Duvalier's regime. Now an old man living in Brooklyn, few would suspect the quiet, reserved barber of the sadistic acts he once reveled in. Certainly not his grown daughter, who slowly realizes how little she knows about the man who raised her. Interspersed within the dew breaker's story are brief but shattering glimpses of the people forever altered by his cruelty. With her trademark lyricism and understated elegance, Danticat has fashioned a deeply moving story of morality, injustice, and the long-lasting effects of tyranny.
Danticat, Edwidge
Krik? Krak!. New York: Soho Press, 1995. 224p. ISBN 9781569470251.
Danticat immigrated to the U.S. when she was just 12-years-old, but the memories of her native country remain vivid and heartbreaking. In her collection of nine short stories, she explores the lives of ordinary Haitians living under Duvalier's oppressive dictatorship. In Children of the Sea, a young man remembers his lost love even as he faces imminent death. In A Wall of Fire Rising, a man dreams about escaping on a hot-air balloon. And, in Caroline's Wedding, a daughter is ordered to wear red underwear to ward off advances from her father's spirit. Throughout these tales, Danticat captures the resilience of the Haitian people, particularly the women, and highlights the importance of the island's storytelling tradition.
Greene, Graham
The Comedians. New York: Penguin Books, 2005 (c1966). 292p.
ISBN 9780143039198.
In Greene's classic title, three very different men meet on a ship bound for Papa Doc's Haiti. The comedians, so named for their penchant for hiding behind masks of apathy, are the vegetarian
Mr. Smith, the con artist Mr. Jones, and the hotelier Mr. Brown. Greene observes the casual violence of Papa Doc and his secret police force through the eyes of Smith, Jones, and Brown, ultimately weaving a tale that is amusing, poignant, and eerily prophetic.
Philoctète, René
Massacre River. Translated by Linda Coverdale. New York: New Directions, 2005. 238p. ISBN 9780811215855.
Tense and ominous, with elements of magical realism prevalent in Caribbean literature, Massacre River is the story of Pedro, a Dominican man, and his loving Haitian wife, Adele. In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo Molina orders the murder of black Haitians living on the border between the two countries. As Trujillo's machete-wielding army advances slowly but surely toward the couple's home, readers are left with a feeling of impending doom. An earlier but equally devastating novel about Trujillo's ethnic-cleansing regime is Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones (1998).
Vieux-Chauvet, Marie
Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Trilogy. Translated by Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokur. New York: Modern Library, 2009 (c2005). 379p. ISBN 9780679643517.
Like Danticat's Krik? Krak!, Vieux-Chauvet's collection focuses on the grim realities of life under a dictatorship (this one unnamed). Love finds an elder sister, ill-favored because of her darker skin color, desperately in love with her brother-in-law. Anger captures the rage a family feels when their daughter is forced to sleep with a soldier to save their home. And, in Madness, a poet ponders his imminent death by the local militia. The publication of Love, Anger, Madness was originally suppressed in 1968, but was eventually made available, in French, in 2005.
NONFICTION
Danticat, Edwidge
After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival of Jacmel, Haiti. New York: Crown Journeys. 2002. 158p. ISBN 9780609609088
In this slim volume, Danticat returns to her native Haiti to participate in her first Carnival. She was never allowed to participate in the revelries as a child; her uncle and guardian thought it too dangerous. But now, through lively, articulate prose, we learn of the charming coastal village of Jacmel, the history of the annual celebration, and the quirks and characteristics of its colorful attendees.
Hurston, Zora Neale
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009 (c1938). 311p. ISBN 9780061695131.
Haitian vodou, or voodoo, continues to be practiced by a large segment of the population and is a source of ongoing fascination. One intrigued foreigner, the American writer Zora Neal Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God), traveled to the Caribbean in the 1930s to study the folklore and religion of the area. Seven decades after publication, Tell My Horse remains in-print to offer new readers an intimate, firsthand account of voodoo rituals.
Kidder, Tracy
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. New York: Random House, 2003. 317pp. ISBN 9780375506161
Pulitzer Prize-winning Kidder tells the inspiring story of Paul Farmer, Harvard-trained infectious disease specialist who works tirelessly to bring modern health care to Haiti and other impoverished nations. Dubbed a modern-day Robin Hood by some and a pesky radical by others, Farmer begged, borrowed, and stole to create a hospital in the poorest region of Haiti. Additionally, Kidder chronicles the frustrating roadblocks and Byzantine politics surrounding international health care. Fascinating and thought-provoking, Mountains Beyond Mountains demonstrates, once again, how one person can make a difference.
Makiia Lucier is a contributing writer for Bookmarks Magazine and a frequent reviewer for Library Journal. She has worked as an academic reference librarian in New Hampshire and held various other library positions in Eugene, Oregon. Makiia has an M.L.I.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2007) and a B.A. from the University of Oregon School of Journalism (1997).