If there is a year that would go down as the year of the greatest achievement in the literary career of Paulette Poujol-Oriol, it would no doubt be 1980, the year she turned 54. That year would bring Poujol-Oriol a great deal of critical acclaim (including the Deschamps Literary Prize) with what some consider to be her most outstanding work: Le creuset: roman.
The novel covers more than a century in the lives of a Haitian family, starting with the matriarch Hermansia Pierre, a woman born under Emperor Faustin Soulouque. Ti Sia, as she is called (Sò Sia, Man Sia afterwards…Sister Sia, Madame Sia), grows up as a homely servant in the household of a relative, and marries at 17 to an older man, a soldier. Procreating is the poor man’s way of acquiring children, and since the first two children that she bears die prematurely, she is deserted by her husband. Just when she thinks everything is lost, Compad a seasonal Cuban merchant steps into her life, and by the time he leaves her never to return, she doesn’t even hold grudges because he left her with Linda, the seed she’s dreamed of at last. Linda marries Merantus Tervil, and that relationship yields Pierre “Roro” Tervil, who practically dominates the rest of the book. With the money left to him in an old mattress by his godfather Boss Calalou, Tervil sets out to make something of himself. During the U.S. Occupation of Haiti in the 1920s, he befriends an American hospital, who’s instrumental in getting him a full scholarship to the United States to become a full-pledged pediatrician. While there, Tervil becomes involved with Lynn, but at his departure he breaks off the relationship with her, with the rationale that she will never adapt to Haitian life and norms. Ironically, while on a steamship returning to Haiti, Tervil meets blonde haired, ice-eyed Micaëlle Deperac Landsfeld, a German-Haitian, returning from Europe. She’s 18, and he’s already in his 30s, and they begin a torrid affair on the ship. All is well until they land in Haiti. When her highbrow, hard-nosed Haitian elite parents uncover the affair, they explode. The reader, of course, notes how a relationship with a fellow compatriot can consist of even more difficulty than that one with a foreigner.
Le Creuset is not a romance novel, though it definitely has its moments, but it’s more like a detailed sketch of life and norms in Haiti. Color issues, social prejudice, education, feminism—are all explored within.
Poujol-Oriol wouldn’t publish another novel until 1996, the riveting story of Coralie Santeuil in Le passage: roman. Where Hermansia Pierre is a take-charge woman, Coralie is so weak, and is so lacking in taking initiative, that she exasperates the reader. Four years prior to telling the story of Coralie, Poujol-Oriol had written a collection of short stories that she entitled La fleur rouge: nouvelles. This book, as with the others, show how much of a genius of the written word that Poujol-Oriol was. In each story, she depicts pieces of Haitian life, sometimes evoking a chuckle, sometimes a shake of the head. There is the story “Lucette”, in which she writes of a socialite in Port-au-Prince who goes to France in search of a husband, accompanied by her mountain-bred playmate. The socialite has some plastic surgery while there to fix her buck teeth, and to decrease her bust size. After a five year campaign, she finally lands the husband, and returns to Haiti with the childhood playmate, who is now in her late teens. The socialite sends her off her childhood friend off to the “trou”, the hole where she came from. The wise reader reads into this, that the girl is sent away—under the pretext that she let some prized birds fly away—when in reality it is because her mistress fears that she will become major temptation for her new husband. The other stories in La fleur rouge: nouvelles follow this same pattern; simple introduction, denouement, and then a final O. Henry-like element of surprise.
Poujol-Oriol was also an educator it turns out, but how glad one is that she found time to write these works, which are a great contribution to Haitian literature. Poujol-Oriol’s genius is recognized by many including Nadève Ménard who in the book Ecrits d’Haïti: Perspectives sur la littérature haïtienne, [Writings of Haiti: Perspective on Haitians Literature] classifies the novelist as one of the most remarkable literary giants of the 20th Century.
Image Credit: Radio Television Caraibes
