Offering a richly nuanced portrayal placing Haiti in a global context as a place of ethnic and cultural complexity, this novel explores the role of spirituality in Caribbean life and culture. Told through multiple voices in a nonlinear fashion, the narrative unfolds through the perspectives of a Haitian-Syrian merchant, Ruth, who recounts her young adulthood and final days as she intuits her imminent death; Catherine, a professional pianist living in Paris who travels home to Haiti upon hearing of her Aunt Ruth's murder; Rose, Catherine's mother, an empath, who is believed to have committed suicide in Canadian exile in reaction to the worst years of the Duvalier regime; Romulus, a once famous Konpa singer and an addict, who, released by rebels from a Port-au-Prince jail searches for his redemption; and Elsie, an Irish, working-class seer who emigrates to Haiti in 1847 in search of a new mystic who will guide them all. Traversing the terrains of Port-au-Prince middle-class life, working-class French Canada, expatriate Paris, the peat bogs of famine stricken Ireland, and tracing lives that cross boundaries of time and place, this is a deeply absorbing portrayal of a fragmented community whose deepest connections lie in a shared sense of spirituality.

This challenging, multi-layered story is told from a womanist perspective through a network of narrative voices encompassing two generations of Haitians, tied together both by blood relations and bloodshed. In addition to the characters' personal struggles with the harsh realities of postcolonial Haiti, the violent history of the last six centuries of the country, from the brutal years of colonialism and slavery to the chaotic aftermath of the fall of the Baby Doc regime, is also explored. The rhythm of the prose echoes Haitian Creole as this dramatic novel unfolds.

In Autochthonomies, Myriam J. A. Chancy engages readers in an interpretive journey. She lays out a radical new process that invites readers to see creations by artists of African descent as legible within the context of African diasporic historical and cultural debates. By invoking a transnational African/diasporic lens and negotiating it through a lakou or "yard space," we can see such identities transfigured, recognized, and exchanged. Chancy demonstrates how the process can examine the salient features of texts and art that underscore African/diasporic sensibilities and render them legible. What emerges is a potential for richer readings of African diasporic works that also ruptures the Manichean binary dynamics that have dominated previous interpretations of the material. The result: an enriching interpretive mode focused on the transnational connections between subjects of African descent as the central pole for reader investigation.A bold challenge to established scholarship, Autochthonomies ranges from Africa to Europe and the Americas to provide powerful new tools for charting the transnational interactions between African cultural producers and sites.

This collection ponders the personal and political implications for Haitians at home and abroad resulting from the devastating 2010 earthquake. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 was a debilitating event that followed decades of political, social, and financial issues. Leaving over 250,000 people dead, 300,000 injured, and 1.5 million people homeless, the earthquake has had lasting repercussions on a struggling nation. As the post-earthquake political situation unfolded, Myriam Chancy worked to illuminate on-the-ground concerns, from the vulnerable position of Haitian women to the failures of international aid. Originally presented at invited campus talks, published as columns for a newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago, and circulated in other ways, her essays and creative responses preserve the reactions and urgencies of the years following the disaster. In Harvesting Haiti, Chancy examines the structures that have resulted in Haiti's post-earthquake conditions and reflects at key points after the earthquake on its effects on vulnerable communities. Her essays make clear the importance of sustaining and supporting the dignity of Haitian lives and of creating a better, contextualized understanding of the issues that mark Haitians’ historical and present realities, from gender parity to the vexed relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

In Autochthonomies, Myriam J. A. Chancy engages readers in an interpretive journey. She lays out a radical new process that invites readers to see creations by artists of African descent as legible within the context of African diasporic historical and cultural debates. By invoking a transnational African/diasporic lens and negotiating it through a lakou or "yard space," we can see such identities transfigured, recognized, and exchanged. Chancy demonstrates how the process can examine the salient features of texts and art that underscore African/diasporic sensibilities and render them legible. What emerges is a potential for richer readings of African diasporic works that also ruptures the Manichean binary dynamics that have dominated previous interpretations of the material. The result: an enriching interpretive mode focused on the transnational connections between subjects of African descent as the central pole for reader investigation.A bold challenge to established scholarship, Autochthonomies ranges from Africa to Europe and the Americas to provide powerful new tools for charting the transnational interactions between African cultural producers and sites.

"A riveting, insightful personal narrative, a confessional that is very thoroughly researched. It will open windows on the rich, complex culture of Haiti, both historical and contemporary." - Moira Ferguson, James E. Ryan Chair in English and Women's Literature, University of Nebraska "A very insightful and brilliantly executed reading of novels by Haitian women." - Selwyn Cudjoe, Marion Butler McLean Professor of the History of Ideas, Wellesley College "A major new work in Caribbean studies." - Gay Wilentz, East Carolina University Colonized and coerced, raped and silenced - this has been the position of Haitian women within their own society, as well as how they have been seen by foreign occupiers. Romanticized symbols of nationhood, they have served, however unwillingly, as a politicized site of contestation between opposing forces. In this first book-length study in English devoted exclusively to Haitian women's literature, Myriam Chancy finds that Haitian women have their own history, traditions, and stories to tell, tales that they are unwilling to suppress or subordinate to narratives of national autonomy. Issues of race, class, color, caste, nationality, and sexuality are all central to their fiction - as is an urgent sense of the historical place of women between the two U.S. occupations of the country. Their novels interrogate women's social and political stances in Haiti from an explicitly female point of view, forcefully responding to overt sexual and political violence within the nation's ambivalent political climate. Through daring and sensitive readings, simultaneously historical, fictional, and autobiographical, Chancy explores this literature, seeking to uncover answers to the current crisis facing these women today, both within their country and in exile. The writers surveyed include Anne-christine d'Adesky, Ghislaine Charlier, Marie Chauvet, Jan J. Dominique, Nadine Magloire, and Edwidge Danticat. Myriam J. A. Chancy is a Haitian scholar and writer born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in Canada. She is an assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University.

This comprehensive collection of essays dedicated to the work of filmmaker Raoul Peck is the first of its kind. The essays, interview, and keynote addresses collected in Raoul Peck: Power, Politics, and the Cinematic Imagination focus on the ways in which power and politics traverse the work of Peck and are central to his cinematic vision. At the heart of this project is the wish to gather diverse interpretations of Raoul Peck's films in a single volume. The essays included herein are written by scholars from different disciplines and are placed alongside Peck's own articulations around the nature of power and politics. Raoul Peck: Power, Politics, and the Cinematic Imagination provides an introduction to Peck's better-known films, interpretations of his rarely seen and recently released early films, and original analyses of his more recent films. It endeavors to explore the ways in which the dual themes of power and politics inform the work of Peck by taking a multidisciplinary approach to contextualizing his filmography. It culls contributions from scholars who write from a wide range of disciplines including history, film studies, literary studies, postcolonial studies, French and Francophone studies and African studies. The result is a volume that offers divergent perspectives and frames of expertise by which to understand Peck's oeuvre that continues to expand and deepen.

Dialogues Across Diasporas focuses on the shared historical legacies of members of the Africana and Latina diasporas, and the cultural impact of the African diaspora in the Americas. This book seeks to emphasize connections rather than divisions among different migratory ethnic communities via a reconfiguration of borders and ethnic identities. This collection of essays has three major goals: first, to foreground shared themes and strategies in the literary productions of women of Africana and Latina/o descent; second, to highlight the importance of the arts for community activism within shared diasporic spaces; and third, to illustrate the potential of artistic and activist collaborations among women from both groups across disciplinary, political, national, and ethnic divides. Dialogues across Diasporas is divided into three sections. The first section provides a theoretical overview of diasporic migrations, politics, and identities. It argues that diverse diasporas can unite around shared political and cultural experiences such as converting contested spaces into communities and resisting rhetorics of exclusion. The second section demonstrates the diverse ways in which migratory women and daughters of the diaspora frame their histories, lived experiences, and different forms of knowledge via poetry, short stories, academic essays, and other art forms. The third section focuses on women's activism, suggesting opportunities for collaboration among and between diverse diasporic communities.

Dialogues Across Diasporas focuses on the shared historical legacies of members of the Africana and Latina diasporas, and the cultural impact of the African diaspora in the Americas. This book seeks to emphasize connections rather than divisions among different migratory ethnic communities via a reconfiguration of borders and ethnic identities. This collection of essays has three major goals: first, to foreground shared themes and strategies in the literary productions of women of Africana and Latina/o descent; second, to highlight the importance of the arts for community activism within shared diasporic spaces; and third, to illustrate the potential of artistic and activist collaborations among women from both groups across disciplinary, political, national, and ethnic divides. Dialogues across Diasporas is divided into three sections. The first section provides a theoretical overview of diasporic migrations, politics, and identities. It argues that diverse diasporas can unite around shared political and cultural experiences such as converting contested spaces into communities and resisting rhetorics of exclusion. The second section demonstrates the diverse ways in which migratory women and daughters of the diaspora frame their histories, lived experiences, and different forms of knowledge via poetry, short stories, academic essays, and other art forms. The third section focuses on women s activism, suggesting opportunities for collaboration among and between diverse diasporic communities."