Haitian Book Club…in which we read a book that has Haiti at its crux. Yay! Today’s selection of the Haitian Book Club is Haiti Noir 2, edited by Edwidge Danticat (her story “The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special”) is also featured.
Haiti Noir was a collection of short stories about the Haiti that was destroyed in the earthquake of the early 2010s. Its second serving is a literary stew of writers and authors of yesterdays like Jacques Stephen Alexis, Jacques Roumain, as well as writers, authors and essayists from the past 30-40 years, including Paulette Poujol Oriol, Michele Voltaire Marcelin, Roxane Gay, Marie-Helene Laforest, Lyonel Trouillot, Dany Laferriere, Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell, Jan J. Dominique and Myriam J.A. Chancy.
Ida Faubert, one of the rare published female voices from the 20th Century has “A Strange Story”, originally published in 1959. The eerie story is built around a mysterious family and the harrowing secret the family matriarch has kept for decades. Alexis is known for his novels, but apparently he wrote short stories as well.
Some of the stories are peppered through different periods. The Haiti of the 1920s is the backdrop for “The Second Enchanted Lieutenant” while Ben Fountain’s story “Rêve Haitien” is set in the 1990s. Nick Stone, a Brit born of a Haitian mother and the author of the novel The Verdict gives readers a look at Max, a booze-indulging, puddle-stumbling in Petionville after dark in “Barbancourt Blues”.
And there’s some poetry too. Writer Ezili Dantò contributes “I Just Lost My Way”, a poem about being lost—in every sense of the word and Danielle Legros Georges takes us through the alleys of Haiti’s capital in “Praisesong of Port-au-Prince”.
The Edwidge Danticat-edited Haiti Noir 2 is quite a collection. A huge shout out to the translators as well: Nicole and David Ball, George Lang, Sharon Masingale Bell, Wayne Grady, and Anne Pease McConnell. The book itself showcases such a an array of generations, it makes you feel as if you had a multi-generational tour of Haiti’s literature. Yeah…It makes you feel as if some things ought to have Part twos.
