This book should be read by all. The first time I read this book, I thought it was taking place in the 1980s or 1990s. And then midway through the book, the author hits us with the fact that the story is taking place in the 1950s. The more the years pass, the more they remain the same.

So many aspects of New World Slavery is presented in this book. Jean-Robert, or Bobby, as he is called, is a chore boy in the house of Florence Cadet, passed on to her by Phillipe Sebastien, her white Frenchman lover. Bobby is not acknowledged by his white father, who sees him as disgraceful nuisance, and that has a toll on him for much of his life.

There’s so many echelons of slavery in this autobiography. Florence is kept in sexual slavery by her many lovers, which includes a priest. Bobby is in child slavery because he is not the legitimate son of Phillipe, and because his mother was an illiterate, low-class Haitian. Bobby’s mother Henriette was kept in social slavery because she was born into the wrong class. And for a long time, Bobby kept himself in mental slavery, unable to exterminate all the years of mental and physical abuse he suffered at the hands of Florence and her entourage.

I think that there may be people who might argue that Bobby’s survival has a lot to do with his immigration to the United States, a move that may not have been possible, had it not been for his biological father, the very source of his miseries. That his transition, as the subtitled states, from Haitian slave child to middle-class has more to do with his father, than his own assertion. To me, that wouldn’t be too good of an argument.

Once in New York, Bobby didn’t have to succeed. He could have subjected himself to drug abuse. He could have prostituted himself when Denis, Florence’s son and Lise wanted him out of the Brooklyn apartment, and he had to fend for himself. But instead, he chose to make it through life through hard work and perseverance. He could have been one of those people who blame their dysfunctional upbringing on how dismally their lives turned out, but he chose to take responsibility for himself.

It’s true that his father gave him a big boost by using his connections to get him a visa to the USA, but without Bobby’s own determination to find himself, to make his past oppressors proud, that passage into the USA and all the opportunities that the Land of the Free provides could have gone by Bobby. Once in the USA, Bobby is able to assert himself, to rid himself of his programmed inferiority complex little by little. But he’s faced head to head with racism. And he did move to the United States, pre-Civil Rights era, and as someone who is black and an immigrant, the path wasn’t exactly smooth.

And, oh, if you’ve read the book, please share your thoughts on it. Restavek deserves a sequel truly. Since I’ve read the book, I’ve wondered how Bobby is doing. If his father is still alive. As a matter of fact, we’re going to try to track down Mr. Jean-Robert Cadet. Surely you have some questions for him too. We’ll assemble them all, and make it part of a Q&A.

I still can remember the first time I ever heard of Marie Vieux Chauvet. It was from reading Dr. Myriam J.A. Chancy’s study of Haitian literature by women entitled: Framing the Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women. I think that for sure I may have read briefly about her in Léon François Hoffman’s survey of Haitian literature, and J. Michael Dash’s book, Literature and Ideology in Haiti, 1915-1961, and perhaps didn’t notice. While I’m on the subject of Chancy, I will also say that I’m eternally grateful to her because before I read her book, I had no idea that there were so many women Haitian writers. To me that book is a great contribution to Haitian women’s literature, though it’s just a survey. Nadine Magloire, Yanick Lahens, Madame Virgile Valcin, better called Cleanthe Desgraves, Annie Desroy, all were introduced to me by Framing the Silence.

Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Triptych is translated from the French by Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokur, and the translation, as far as I can tell is outstanding. Nothing seemed amiss. I must say that I’m extremely grateful to those two as well, and the Vieux estate for making this English translation possible, and to make it accessible to so many of us. And thank you Modern Library Classics.
Edwidge Danticat wrote a rather gracious forward. I’m sure she feels a lot of gratitude towards Vieux Chauvet, who in a way, paved the way for Ms. Danticat. I’m sure she views her as an inspiration.

Marie Vieux Chauvet-undated photo (left)

Reading the book put me in quite a state. A state of fear, it’s like classic horror, but the bogeymans were all visible. I had read on Haitiwebs.com about how Marie Vieux Chauvet (to self: I wonder if she’s related to the CaRiMi singer Carlo Vieux), and how she went into exile, how her family had her books burned for fear of reprisal from the government, because, really she was denouncing the 1960s-era Duvalier government in thinly-disguised plotlines even though in the narrative she set her story decades before. In the first book (Love), Claire Clarmont (a rather ironic name, considering that Claire means light in French), a dark-skinned Haitian born into an elite Haitian family consisting of mulattoes and near-white relatives, feels isolated and unloved, but facing the tyranny of a dictatorship gives her the strength she needs to affirm her identify. In the second part of the trilogy, Rose Normil, the beautiful daughter of one of Haiti’s most powerful mulatto families allows herself to be sodomized by a police chief to save her family’s land from governmental pillagers. I almost couldn’t muster the gumption to read the last novella Madness, the story of Réné, the political prisoner, who’s being starved and terrorized in a prison cell, along with other dissidents.

I felt horrified throughout the time I was reading the novellas in this trilogy. What a way to live. I felt the pain of Rose’s family; I felt Claire’s frustration, the agony of the Normils, as the family maid who was secretly envying their lifestyle and their wealth, betrayed them.

I couldn’t help but notice a lot of anti-black Haitian sentiment throughout the novel. The police chief in Anger doesn’t have a name, but is referred to as the Gorilla, and in the narrative his African features are constantly put in derision. But I try to understand that it must not have been pretty for people to be victimized because of their skin color.

I understand from reading the books Written in Blood by Heinls clan, The Breached Citadel by Patrick Bellegarde, that up to the 1950s, there was no black middle class in Haiti. And that one of the things that occurred during the late-50s and up to the 1970s, was an incessant persecution and purging of the fair-skinned middle and upper class to make way for the Haitian black middle class. But why did one color need to be wiped out to make place for another. Coexistence wasn’t possible? SMH.

If you’ve read this book, kindly share your thoughts on it. If you can help it, try to stick to general storylines, so as to not spoil the plot for others who have yet to read it.

Aside from the serpent and the tarantula, no animal exudes more fear than the scorpion. It’s the creature whose infamous claws prolongs and—puts a dead stop—to life. The claw is the primary instrument used by the animal to gather food necessary for survival. With it, the scorpion kills, sometimes its very own.

Dr. Myriam J.A. Chancy’s literary outing, the fittingly-titled The Scorpion’s Claw (Peepal Tree Press), is a poetic prose-rich novel, recounting nearly four generations of valiant Haitian women and men from the early years of the U.S. Occupation to post-Duvalier days.

Within the novel’s sanguine and restless pages, one becomes acquainted—and subsequently fully engrossed—in the life of the long-suffering matriarch Carmel, whose determination to make sense of the 75 years she’s lived, is the catalyst for such-like, indisposed self-examination of offspring to come. In Carmel’s world and that of her daughters Jacqueline and Maude, self-denial and hypocritically shutting the eye to the unpleasant is the norm. Reads the text: “The girls like me, lived their lives behind their husbands, denying that anything was wrong when their men did not come home for whole weeks at a time, denying any resemblance between their children and those who they saw playing in the streets in the next town or village. Perhaps they thought they were the lucky ones since they had rings on their fingers and their men presented themselves at their sides in church every Sunday.”

One such child ‘in the next town or village’ is Alphonse, the spawn of the coupling of the middle class Monsieur Leo and a poor peasant. Alphonse’s lowly birth is such that he is the servant in his own father’s house, the invisible child, whose existence will not be swiftly forgiven by a society who’s not so particularly merciful when it comes to trespassing unwritten class laws. Alphonse’s persistent need for vengeance realized through the shutting out his half-brother Delphi leads to a lifetime of emotional haunting and another wrong in the vicious cycle of man-orchestrated retribution.

In The Scorpion’s Claw, one also sorts through the emotional baggage of Josèphe, whose remedy for the trauma suffered through the rape at the hands of a family acquaintance, is total absorption—or rather obsession—with her academic studies. Her cousin Désirée, does not necessarily have a better lot. Through a conscience awakening, she abandons the elite lifestyle to join the lowly masses. But there is no burning bush or miraculous, glorious deliverance after her Moses-like abandoning of Egyptian riches in return for the disfranchised life of the people.

Chancy, a past nominee of Canada’s prestigious Commonwealth Literary Prize and whose more accustomed to analyzing other writers’ works (e.g. 1997’s Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women and Searching for Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women in Exile) than crafting her own—has written quite a novel. With its contemplative text, The Scorpion’s Claw attempts to pull the veil shielding the ugly and spiteful past and open the passage way to redress newly open scabs. It succeeds considerably in tackling both areas.

Have you read this selection of the Haitian Book Club? If not, be sure to let us know your thoughts after you’ve read it.

Author Photo via:

The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States is a special tome in more ways than one. It’s the first story anthology of Haitian and Haitian-American writers, for one, assembled and curated in the English language. Sectioned off in four little stages (Childhood, Migration, First Generation, and Return), the non-fiction narratives, essays and poems touch on everything from self-imposed exile, to identity, to colorism.

In “Exiled”, Sandy Alexandre writes of being sent to Haiti by her parents for rehabilitation, a parental practice among Haitian parents, who sent their unruly kids to Haiti to condition them to appreciate the luxuries and perks of privileged, “developed” world living. Gary Pierre-Pierre’s “The White Wife”, chronicles the story of a black man who feels no need to apologize for his choice. The indignant “Do Something for You Soul, Go to Haiti”, denounces patronizing and exploitation disguised as goodwill.

Some of the most color-filled stories about the ones where individuals like Francie Latour in “Made Outside” and Joanne Hyppolite straddle across two cultures. “At your communion and birthday parties,” Hyppolite writes, “all of Boston Haiti seems to gather in your house to eat griyo and sip kremas.” In Marc Christophe’s poem “Present Past Future” (no commas in the title, therefore signifying that all three are interconnected and inseparable, and perhaps part of an ongoing cycle, he declares: “I would love to recite for you/The history of my people/Their daily struggles for food and drink/Whose lives are a struggle with no end.”

This collection is so varied that it will bring out a plethora of emotions out in you, a tear, a chuckle, and in some cases, a nod of the head.

If you’ve never heard of Educa Vision, you’ve at least seen, read or purchased one of the publishing company’s books without realizing it. Educa Vision, whose niche is publishing Haiti-focused, and Creole-language books, is based in Coconut Creek, Florida and among their bestsellers was one of the first full-pledged Haitian-Creole language dictionaries. Headed by Féquière Vilsaint who serves as CEO and President and author Maude Heurtelou, who holds the reins Vice President, the company has and grossed half a million dollars last year.

What started as a three-person operation, has grown to nearly a dozen staff members, publishing at least 65 titles a year from about 10 when the company first launched in 1991. In addition to the educational titles that are Educa Vision’s bread and butter (books, audio, video, charts, interactive titles), the company publishes children’s fiction books, historical, and coffee table titles. Among the books in Educa Vision’s rich and eclectic catalog are Fine Haitian Cuisine: A Broad Collection of Haitian Recipes by Mona Cassion Ménager, one of the few books about Haitian cooking in English, and Who is Who in the Haitian Diaspora a reference book of notable Haitians, a historical tome A History of Survival, Strength and Imagination in Haiti by C. Accilien, J. Adams, E. Meleance and even an English translation of noted Haitian painter Philippe Dodard’s book L’Idée de Modernité dans l’Art Contemporain Haïtien, not to mention several groundbreaking Kreyol-English bilingual children’s books, including The Bonplezi Family, widely catalogued in children’s libraries all over the United States.

The publishing company has expanded to include non-Haitian themed books like The Two Mrs. Gibsons, a children’s book about an African-American girl of Japanese heritage. Vilsaint and Heurtelou have also added Caribbean Studies Press, an imprint of Educa Vision, that publishes Caribbean-interest works. Vilsaint, a graduate of Concordia and Lavale University, estimates that his company has 755 books in its catalog. He was more than happy to discuss Educa Vision with us.

How did you get interested in publishing?
As a Molecular Biologist at the University of South Florida, I was often invited to speak to high school students about careers and specifically about my work as a Biochemist and Molecular Biologist. These encounters took place mostly during Black History Month celebrations. At one of these encounters, a student seated in a corner appeared completed disinterested to the discussion. My efforts to get his attention did not move him. I learned later that he was a Haitian student who did not speak English. To make the story short, I started to prepare thematic bilingual lists for the student to review a week or two before the teacher would introduce a specific theme. That led to one teacher inviting me to speak at a teacher’s meeting at county-level [and] later to a state-level ESL conference. In all cases, some teachers requested copies of my thematic notes for their own students, in other schools. I made the decision to develop and publish two dictionaries in one year and to organize Educa Vision.

After the first year, I requested and obtained one year leave of absence from the University. After the leave period, I decided not to return and continue the development of Educa Vision. I’ve been interested in publishing, since high school. In college, I was photo editor and later French editor for the University newspaper. I also volunteered to organize several community communication pieces.

When did the company start being profitable?
After about one year, we reach a break-even point and we stayed more or less at this level for many years. We systematically re-invest any profit to develop new projects, train our employees, re-tool or renew equipment and expand working space. We offer additional editorial services to institutional customers, including other publishers, the Center for Disease Control and others. These services bring some revenues to help Educa focus on educational materials.

Are you pleased with the response that you’ve gotten so far?
Teachers with Haitian students in the USA are delighted to have access to educational materials connected culturally and linguistically to the Haitian students. In Haiti, educators interested to find materials in home language are very happy to seek our resources. We are invited occasionally to present training seminars in Haiti. The responses from teachers are very, very encouraging. Finally we received several awards, including one from Haitian Studies Association during the Annual Conference at Brown University in 2010. In 2011, The United States Library of Congress invited Educa Vision along with some authors to make a presentation at the Library Of Congress—on Educa Vision history and trajectory—for the Permanent Archive.

Has the fact that Educa Vision is based in Florida been a plus for the company?
We think so. The benefit of being in South Florida is a proximity to Haiti. I can travel early in the morning, participate in a meeting in Port-au-Prince and return the following day early. In the United States, most of the orders come in electronically or by the Post Office. Our [face to face] contacts with customers are through conferences and exhibits. The exhibits are in Florida and New York, equally.

No doubt you are inundated with manuscripts and book proposals. What criteria do you usually look for when deciding whether to turn a manuscript into a publication?
First, that the manuscript has an education connection or a cultural reference. Second, that the author has a good grasp of the subject at hand anchored by experience, education or both. Third, that the author masters the language in which the manuscript is written. Fourth, that the content is rationally, critically and functionally organized. Fifth, that we can sell the books in the market that we serve. Sixth, other. This is a simplification. There are other elements that we consider in evaluating a project. We discuss submissions during a weekly editorial meeting that takes place every Wednesday at 1:00 PM.

What have you learned along the way as a publisher of multicultural and Caribbean-themed books?
The Caribbean is a diverse and dynamic environment. It contributes a large body of interesting materials analyzed through a critical prism that could be appreciated by people around the world. It is important to open access to education for all, with materials that include the experience of the students in the context of a multicultural world.

Where do you see Educa Vision heading?
In 2011 we published 63 titles, in four different languages for K-12 and academic levels. This year’s crop include a science collection of 36 titles in Haitian Creole. [So] more books, convergence toward materials that can be accessed electronically. We are working on the first Haitian Creole Encyclopedia.

This has been an edition of Yap Mennen, in which we celebrate and highlight the achievements of leaders in the community. Join us for the next edition!

Some people can’t help but compare Haiti Noir to its predecessor The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, but as the subtitle of the latter indicates, it was a collection of short literary works by writers from the United States.

Haiti Noir for its part, is a literary works collection of not only writers in the United States (Katia D. Ulysse, Ibi Aanu Zobi, Patrick Sylvain, Marie-Lily Cerat), but celebrated novelists and playwrights of Haiti like Rodney Saint Eloi, Yanick Lahens, Evelyne Trouillot, Marvin Victor, Kettly Mars, Louis-Phillipe Dalembert, Gary Victor, who live and write in various corners of the earth be it France, Haiti, Canada, Germany, and whose award-winning writing, in most cases, is finally being made available for English-speaking readers (translated by Nicole and David Ball). Not only is Haiti and the Haitian experience seen through their eyes, but it is seen through the eyes of non-Haitians like novelists Madison Smart Bell and Mark Kurlansky.

And Haiti Noir has practically picked up the Lost Years between the time The Butterfly’s Way was released, and modern times, to include life-changing events like Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, which is explored in three stories in the 18-story collection. Gary Victor sprinkles dark humor in his story “The Finger”, which is so macabre it makes the heart go pitter-patter with vigorous “Tell-Tale Heart”-like beats. One of the most arresting stories in the collection is Josaphat-Robert Large’s “Rosanna”, the ill-fated story of an orphan who is the victim of lower-class resentment of the elite. Its almost unexpected ending inspires shivers.

M.J. Fièvre’s “The Rainbow’s End” recounts an episode in the life of a precocious teenager during the embargo-imposed 1990s and the older, reckless man of ill-gotten gains that she falls in lust with, while in Nadine Pinède’s “Departure Lounge”, a young Haitian expat in Cap Haitian, who has auditory comprehension of Kreyol, as she calls it, but full-blown comprehension of her culture she lacks not, collaborates with a Martha Stewart-esque mogul and cringes at her employer bringing a copy of Zora Neale Hurston’s book Tell My Horse, as her guide to Haiti.
Haiti Noir is like an all you can eat spot, that makes you yearn to eat more from Haiti’s literary buffet.

Today’s Haitian Book Club selection is Vale of Tears by Paulette Poujol-Oriol, a most gifted novelist. Vale of Tears is the English translation of her novel Le Passage (hats off to translator Dolores A. Schaefer for a job well-done…no clumsy, stilted English, just a smooth translation), and it’s understandable why Ibex Publishers, the publisher for the English edition didn’t title it The Passage, but chose the more descriptive Vale of Tears, for The Passage would have been an understatement, as the life of Coralie Santeuil is everything except a crystal stair. As one begins to read about her origins, and follow her into adolescence, it’s clear that it will take a miracle to salvage her from the horrendous deck of cards, she’s been dealt. Only there’s no miracle.

Born into a wealthy, upper-class mulatto family in Haiti in the year 1901, the red-headed, silver-eyed, and physically fragile Coralie is the victim of Aline, a self-serving, manipulative woman who marries her father. Aline’s cruelty makes Cinderella’s stepmother look like Mary Magdalene post-redemption. The thing about Coralie is that she never recovers from the emotional abuse inflicted by her during those pre-teen and post-adolescent years.

At this point in Haitian society, it was probably rather scandalous for an unmarried girl to get away from her wicked stepmother by going off to her own apartment, so Coralie is somewhat of a helpless victim. When she does leave home, though, at the start of Word War II, she uses her freedom to liberate her body, not her mind. She’s still the same frightened little Coralie that Aline used to lock up in dark closets, and deprive of her loving doll—the mother Aline can never be, who gives her the affection that her absentee, backbone-lacking father Félix has wholly surrendered to his second wife.

Vale of Tears is truly brilliantly written; the narrator goes from one stage to another of Coralie Santeuil’s life, with each chapter a back and forth of sort between her past and her present. It’s been said that dwelling on the past is destructive, but for a woman like Coralie, looking at the past is an absolute must. Flipping over the previous pages of her life, allows her to reflect, to see where she went wrong, even if her decisions and lack of self-will are irreversible.

Poujol-Oriol captures the essence of human nature so well, that the novel might as well have been a contemporary one. This passage from the novel for example describes a scene at a funeral:

“Well, it is not the dead that people give wreaths and sheaves of flowers at funerals. They could not care less. It is to those who stay behind, to the living, especially if they are rich, that the super floral arrangements are given. It is a way of saying to acquaintances, “See we are your friends. Do not forget us at your parties and in your business ventures.”

By the time I had read the last sentence of the book, I felt this immeasurable sadness, this melancholy for Coralie’s life, and this regret over the fact that I would never meet this agile novelist Paulette Poujol Oriol, who died in March 2011. Her novel has been one of the most engrossing, at times difficult to take, works I’ve ever read. Her heroine is so real, you can almost feel her pain when she gets cut, feel her mortification every time she’s humiliated. Coralie is, as Poujol-Oriol puts it, “engrossed in her private hurricane”, and judging from the direction her life took, it must have been a Category 6.

Author Photo: Eddy Aubourg/Le Nouvelliste

To read other selections of our Haitian Book Club, click here.

Creating dangerously—that’s what Edwidge Danticat’s writing ancestors did. One of the most acclaimed writers of this century and last, and arguably the most prominent Haitian-American writer in the United States, you’d think that Edwidge Danticat would put her pen away, and rest on her laurels which include a National Book Award nomination, and a win, The National Book Critics Circle Award, the International Flaiano Prize, and the Langston Hughes Medal. and others, if were to list them all we’d risk getting typist cramp.

Non, non. The lady scribe hasn’t put away her blood for ink, nor her parchment paper. Instead, she chose to release her latest literary opus Creating Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work, to explore the creative journeys of immigrants. She opens her collection of introspective essays with a written remembrance of Louis Ardouin and Marcel Numa, two artist-students who in 1964 were mercilessly executed, as one of the 13 members of Jeune Haiti, a revolutionary group that attempted an invasion of the country during the presidency of François Duvalier. From there, she explores her journey and that of other artistic greats, who often had to create at the risk of their own lives, and that of their families. A decade and half after she made her literary debut with Breath, Eyes, Memory, Danticat tries approaches her craft with as much enthusiasm as when she was the young writer blushing over acclaim from critics. Get into the circle and listen to our conversation.

Q&A

Will there ever be a sequel to Breath, Eyes, Memory?
It’s probably wise to never say never, but I don’t think there will be a sequel to Breath, Eyes, Memory anytime soon. I have a lot of other stories I want to write. I’m not sure I’m ready to revisit those characters again in the very near future, but I am always extremely moved by the way that this book has touched some people. I would have never imagined what it would mean to a lot of young women, for example, which is why I am hesitant to touch it. Breath, Eyes, Memory is like a first child. You try everything on your first child and make all your mistakes and hope and pray it still turns out okay. Maybe at some point I might revisit Sophie, the main character, as a grandmother–maybe when I am a grandmother myself– see how she has done in America late in life. Who knows? But I’m not thinking of writing a sequel right now.

You came to the United States as a little girl of twelve. Did you, in your wildest dreams, think that you would become the writer of world renown that you are now?
Well, you know how they say that God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself. This is certainly the case. I would not have been able to dream any of this and by “this” I mean, having the great blessing of doing something I absolutely love, as my work, every single day of my life. That to me is the definition of success, doing something you love and are passionate about and having good health and most days having relative peace of mind.

Out of all the books you’ve written, which one do you think would lend itself the most to a film adaptation?
I used to work in film and I still try to work as much as possible in documentary for example, because it is a medium I love, but I am probably the worst person to make that determination. I think they would all make good films in the right hands. I have to tell you that in the last couple of years, I have had many promising conversations with so many wonderful young Haitian and Haitian-American filmmakers, some in film school, some out on their own, that I am very optimistic about our having some wonderful films made within this community over all. I want to take the opportunity to incidentally plug Jacmel’s Cine Institute, Haiti’s only film school. They are doing great things in film. Also this short film was made by Rachel Benjamin from one of the stories in Krik? Krak! called “The Missing Peace”.

Which of your books has been the hardest to write?
Hands down, it has to be Brother, I’m Dying, my memoir about the death of my uncle and father. In one way writing it was a way of visiting with both my father and uncle after they died, but in another way, with each page and each day, they were slipping away from me. It was the fastest book I had ever written, but also the hardest, emotionally, to write.

Do you imagine ever sitting in front of your computer or with your notebook in hand, and not having one word come out?
No because on that day, I would write, “Why I am sitting in front of my computer with my notebook in hand and no word is coming out? OH GOD WHHHHHHY?” And that would be something, right? Seriously, it has happened sometimes, but when it does, I read or do something else or try to go about living my life and not pressure myself too much until the words come back.

Is a room with a view an absolute necessity for a writer?
I don’t think so. Sometimes a great view can be distracting and make you want to go outside and play. I write at night mostly, exactly for that reason, to have as few distractions as possible.

Your father and uncle are unarguably two of your life’s biggest heroes. What is the best advice they’ve given to you?
Both my father and uncle were not the type to give me direct advice really, beyond the strong “recommendations” and suggestions, which are not really suggestions, that we all get when we are young. But I learned a lot of things by example from them. My uncle was a minister so his sermons were filled with konsèy to his congregation. One I remember clearly is about humility. Sèl pa bezwen di l sale, he used to say. Salt doesn’t have to say it’s salty. Beginning with the time I was a teenager, on my birthday, my dad always bought me flowers and chocolates. The first time he did that he said, “I want to be the first man to give you these things so that you don’t lose your head the first time someone gives them to you, so that it feels normal to you, so that you know you deserve them.” After that he always sent me flowers and chocolates on my birthday every year until he died. Wherever I was I would always get flowers and chocolates from my dad on my birthday. And it was always a great reminder to me that I was loved unconditionally, which is something I miss so much from him, which is one of the reasons, I still miss my daddy very very much. That and the fact that my girls and my brothers’ children won’t know either of these men are still heartbreaking to me.

Of all the accolades that you’ve gotten which one means the most to you?
Every award is a gift, something encouraging you to continue and go on. That’s really how I see them as encouragement to try harder and do more and do better and hang in there. The MacArthur Fellowship was a most tremendous gift, of course. The Hurston/Wright nominations as well as the Langston Hughes medal which was very kindly given to me last November 18th meant a great deal to me , because I have always loved the work of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, especially the work on Haiti, so it meant a lot to me to have this full circle connection between them and me and Haiti.

Recently though, I participated in an event for the two year commemoration of the January 12th earthquake organized by Dickson Guillaume and the Haitian Mass Choir in Brooklyn and three young Haitian-American women from the organization Beltifi presented me with a painting painted by the founder’s mother and right before giving it to me the young women read a few words and one of the young women said something like, “Thank you because after reading you, we have no fear”, and I was at a total mess after she said that. I was at a total loss for words.

I kept seeing myself at fifteen and imagining also feeling momentarily fearless because of some book I had just read and I knew exactly what she meant and this was such a full circle moment for me and I was so moved and was so choked up that I was not even able to give the speech I came to give. I looked at those young women and I kept thinking of our journey as immigrants in this country and I kept looking back and looking forward at what words, our parents’ dreams and courage, their love, fears, pride, prayers, support and these types of things can do and what reading and art can do and what these things might mean one day to my daughters and other young girls and women like them and I got really, really choked up.

You have two daughters. How has motherhood been for you?
Motherhood has been greatly sweetened by the fact that I have a most wonderful husband. My girls have been blessed with a great father who enjoys their company and carries a lot of the load. I often tell people that motherhood is a family project, from my mother and my mother in law to the great friends who love my daughters and sometimes care for them like their own, this all makes motherhood easier and my ability to do other things possible, so it bears saying, because we don’t say it enough, that at its best motherhood is a communal project. It takes a village, sometimes several villages, indeed.

With do-it-yourself book technology, do you think that one day, there will be no need for publishers and books, especially printed books?
I am not sure where it’s all going. I think we’re all a bit nervous, truthfully about what all the technology will mean to writers, readers, publishers, booksellers and books. Which part of the chain will be wiped out first, we wonder? Bookstores? Publishers? Writers? Who knows? All I know is that people have been telling stories since the dawn of time and they will continue to find some way to tell them and even if there is some day enough technology to tattoo a book behind my eyelids, I think I will always want to hold something in my hand and turn a page anyway.

Photo: The MacArthur Foundation

Haiti’s history is like a historical soap opera, a soap opera that historian and professor Laurent Dubois is more than happy to chronicle. First there was Avengers of the New World, his chronicle of the Haitian Revolution and its significance. Perhaps the dramatic aspects of the country’s history were more than titillating for Dubois who chose to revisit Haiti, this time for a full-pledged history, from the days of the racketeering buccaneers to the months following Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

German influence started out as really intense in early 19TH Century Haiti. And now it’s virtually gone?
It is largely gone, although there are many families that have some German background. The rise of U.S. economic power, and particularly the period of occupation, essentially brought about the end of the economic presence of Germans. The Germans were in many cases replaced by Syrian merchants, who developed close ties with the U.S. and received support from the country during the late 19th and early 20th century.

The U.S. Marines came to Haiti in 1915 and remained for nearly three decades? Why didn’t Haiti turn out to be an English-speaking country?
The occupation was 19 years in total, and there were some attempts to institute English-language education. But many Haitians resisted that, and indeed celebrated their links with France and the French language precisely was a way to resist U.S. cultural influence. There is now a two-century long intellectual and literary history of writing in French in Haiti: even though French speakers have always been a small minority in the country, they have been incredibly prolific as thinkers, producing novels and poetry as well as a wide range of work on literature, anthropology, psychology, and other fields.

For years, historians have had this back and forth about whether some of the Tainos and Arawaks escaped to the mountains and have descendants, whereas others have said that they were annihilated.
There is no doubt that there were some who survived, though largely by mixing in with the Spanish settlements. And there is some evidence that indigenous people did remain the mountains and may have connected with early maroon communities, thus influencing aspects of Haitian culture, notably in the Vodou religion. But Haiti really developed as a colony only starting in the late 17th century – centuries after the decimation of the indigenous people in the early 1500s. Reports from the late 18th century, though, do make clear that there were lots of traces of the indigenous culture everywhere in colonial Saint-Domingue: some churches has old artifacts incorporated into their construction, and there were many stone “zemis,” representations of the indigenous gods, often incorporated as sacred objects into Vodou temples.

In The Aftershocks, you discuss the Kreyòl language a great deal. How has the language changed over the years?
The M.I.T. linguist Michel Degraff argues that Kreyòl emerged relatively early in Saint-Domingue’s colonial history, probably in the early 18th century, and by the 1750s there were already plays being written and performed in the language. The orthography of the language has of course varied since them – there are still some differences in terms of spelling and accents, though there is increasing consensus about that – and there have always been regional variations to the language too. But it’s crucial to understand that it’s a rich language with deep roots, having thrived for more than two centuries, and that it has essentially always been the major language of the Haitian people.

You’ve written books about Haiti before. While doing research for The Aftershocks, did you come across anything new, or anything that surprised you?
I certainly learned a lot in writing the book. I deepened my understanding of Haiti’s nineteenth century, which is not discussed enough and I think is often misrepresented, and enjoyed learning about the complexities of that period. I also learned many new details about the U.S. Occupation of Haiti, and was struck by how much about that period still resonates today. But my favorite part about writing the book was spending time reading and learning about some of Haiti’s great intellectuals and writers – particularly figures like Anténor Firmin, Jacques Roumain, and Marie-Vieux Chauvet – who accompanied me as I struggled to understand the country’s complex past. I knew about these figures before and had read some of their work, but I discovered much more about them in the process of writing this book. I’m hoping to spend more time exploring and teaching their work in the coming years, and have thought about writing a book just focusing on Roumain at some point. I’m also working with four other scholars (Nadève Ménard of the Université d’Etat d’Haïti, Millery Polyné of NYU, Chantalle Verna of Florida International University, and Kaiama Glover of Barnard University) on a book called The Haiti Reader whose goal will be to offer translations of excerpts from Haitian writers and thinkers to an English-language public. In trying to answer questions about Haiti’s past, I definitely came upon many new questions that still need to be explored. My ultimate hope is that the book can help spur on more research and writing about the country’s complex and fascinating past.

This has been another interview from Kreyolicious! Today’s guest was Laurent Dubois, historian and scholar.

When Jean-Robert Cadet released his book Restavec, it was a trailblazer from so many angles. It was the first time someone who had been a restavek (Cadet gave his book the French spelling)—a child kept for manual labor in Haiti—was speaking out. It was also one of the first timesthat the social practice was being brought to light by someone other than the leader or members of an activist group. Moreover, it was one of the first times that sexual abuse, mental, physical abuse in Haitian society was being addressed. The book quickly became a reference book to so many, and was translated into French, and brought Cadet on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show, and made Cadet a sough-after speaker on the speaker circuit.

Cadet’s book, welcomed by many, chronicled his life story, starting from the day his father, Philippe “Blan Philippe” Sébastien, a wealthy French businessman living in Haiti—(following the death of his Young Cadet’s mother)—brought him to live with one of his mistresses “Florence” Cadet. Florence, a harsh woman, had the young Cadet wash her period linens, and verbally and physically abused Cadet, who ironically was given her last name as his. Jean-Robert Cadet eventually found his way to the United States; the abuse discontinued, but the repercussions from all the years of it did not, leading him on a search to, if not undo the harm that had been done to him over the years, then definitely try to come to terms with it, and heal it.

Many people who have read Cadet’s autobiography have wondered what he’s been up to since the publication of the book. These readers need wonder no more. Cadet has written a sequel, with the assistance of Jim Luken, entitled Stone of Hope: From Haitian Slave Child to Abolitionist, that covers his journey since the release of Restavec, as well as additional details left out of the first book. When writing Restavec, Cadet was trying to gather the pieces of his life together; with Stone of Hope, he’s organized almost all the pieces of the final puzzle.

The author graciously answered some questions by Kreyolicious.com readers, in addition to answering our own. It was obvious from his answers, lengthy on the subject of the restavek system, and short, and almost evasive on the questions concerning his personal past and former family, that he’s still struggling to heal, to forgive and forget.

When you went to see Florence that last time in the book, did you ever see her again after that? [from @MercyOlivia]
No. I never saw her again after that last meeting.

Ask him How does he feel when he hear about “Restaveks” living right here in the U.S in places like South Florida and New York? Also ask him are there still psychological effects from being a Restavek that lingers on for the rest of his life? [@wilkensjeune ]
It saddens me every time I read about the exploitation of children by anyone. But it hurts more when Haitians do it because Haiti was the first nation to have broken the chain of slavery. It makes me think that Haitians don’t value their history and the accomplishments of Toussaint Louverture and others who sacrificed their lives to create a nation under the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Anyone who spent his or her childhood in domestic slavery will always be affected by the experience. We are our cultures as well as our past experiences. Because each one of us is unique in our complexity, the experience will manifest itself differently in each of its victims. Some will have nightmares for the rest of their lives, and others will never value other people’s lives because their own lives were never valued.

I wanted to know how did u get over these things without it effecting you as an adult, was it your spiritual strength, what? I know abuse first hand and i knew my journey out of darkness so I cam imagine yours. Is Bobby still on speaking terms with his biological father, how did their relationship flourish and I agree a sequel is a must. Child slavery is still alive and real in Haiti more awareness should be place on this issue! [Sharon @SAPierre]
I never got over these things. I am still affected by them. I have yet to experience a full week of peaceful night sleep. My father died in 1998 after the release of my first book, Restavec. We never had a relationship. My wife often wakes me up in the middle of the night because of nightmares. I think national awareness in Haiti is the key to eliminate the problem, and the new generation must be sensitized to the plight of children in restavek situations.

For Mr. Cadet, how do you deal with audiences who accuse you of portraying Haitians in a negative light? Though this is the first open discussion I’ve seen on you book, I imagine some within our community might’ve had the same reactions U.S. African Americans felt toward Alice Walker’s Color Purple. People don’t like having their dirty laundry aired, speaking of which that scene when you had to wash her underwear is an image that haunted me for quite some time. [NatouCBS]
I don’t think that I am being accused of portraying Haitians in a negative light. However, I do feel that societies that provide no protections for its children should be viewed in negative lights. How do we insure a better future for the human race if we don’t value our children? People who see children as dirty laundry are sick. They need help.

When writing the book and have to relive the memories how did you feel? Do you feel that telling your story gives you closure and other that can’t tell their story? [Erica]
I never intended to write, Restavec, my story. When my son was celebrating his sixth birthday, he asked: “Daddy how come I have never met my grandma and grandpa on your side of the family?” That night I began a letter to him, using words that small children would understand. Six months later, I was still writing this letter. After my wife read it, she suggested that I publish it. Writing the story had been very therapeutic. I think the second book, My Stone of Hope has given me a sense of closure because it’s more reflective than Restavec.

The situation of restavek in Haiti is a very complicated and delicate matter. Because so many vulnerable families can’t afford to take care of all their children, the need to find places where they can live and be fed continues to exist. What kinds of socio-economic solutions can help reduce the need for the restavek system to continue? If fewer families were struggling to survive, would the number of children living as restavek naturally diminish, or is it a phenomenon that would continue for cultural reasons? [Melinda Miles]
Cruelty to children is not the result of poverty. The people who kept me as their restavek were not poor. They lived in a three bedroom house with a dining room, kitchen and living room, and ate chickens or guinea hens on Sundays with imported canned vegetables, food I was always denied. They had a laundress and a cook. They spoke French to their children and addressed me in Creole. The living room, dining room and bathroom were off limits to me. Their neighbors, who had children my age, borrowed me routinely to wash their cars and fetch their children from school. The whole thing was a national conspiracy against children of the lower class, perpetuated by the legacy of colonial slavery.

And some of our own questions…

Why did you choose to keep the name Jean-Robert Cadet, as opposed to Alfrenold Brutus, the name your mom Henrilia Brutus gave you? And why didn’t you change your last name to Sebastian like your dad’s?
Because I was told that CADET was a loan to me, I always assumed that a family had to give me a name. I never knew that people could actually choose any name they want. By the time I realized these things, I had served in the US. Military. For convenience sake, I kept the name.

What is your relationship like with your son Adam today?
Adam and I have a great relationship. He has just graduated from a college of performing arts in N.Y. He’s an actor.

Do you feel completely healed from all the abuse you suffered?
Of course not. I would have to undergo a brain transplant to be completely healed. We are our past experiences. These experiences project into our present as we prepare for the future.

You and your friend Olivier reunited?
Olivier and I have since reunited. He’s still one of my best friends. We often see each other in Haiti.

What is your relationship with your father’s twins like today? And what about Denis, Lyse, and her kids?
I have no relationship with these people.

After that meeting with your dad when you first enrolled in the army, did you two ever cross paths again?
No. I learned of his demise when I returned to Haiti in 1998 to give him a copy of Restavek.

Why has it taken so long for the sequel to be written?
It took me 10 years to write My Stone of Hope the sequel to Restavec because this time I was actually writing a book.

When you released your book, what was the reaction of your family, specifically the people who were mentioned unfavorably within?
I changed all the names to fictitious ones to avoid problems with them.

Do you think that the fact that you suffered so much at the hands of Florence, and her other Haitian women friends, turned off the possibility of your being romantically involved with a Haitian woman?
It’s hard to say. We don’t plan on falling in love with a specific race. Love happens in all places.

There’s been debates among Haitians and non-Haitians alike, as to whether the whole restavek system should even be likened to slavery. What are your thoughts on this?
I know many children in domestic slavery in Port-au-Prince who are living in deathly fear of the adults they serve. They walk other children to and from school, yet they are denied schooling. I’ve offered to pay their tuition, but the adults rejected the offer. Last year I met a girl from Jeremie who was sold by her paternal uncle to a woman for $ 25.00. The woman supported her family, selling cooked food on a roadside six days a week. The woman agreed that I pay the girl’s tuition, but denied her time to attend school in the afternoon. It took me months to locate the girl’s aunt, who has since reclaimed her niece.

If your story were to be brought to the big screen, who would you want to play you in the different stages of your story?
The film rights to Restavec were purchased in 2010 by a production company. I was recently told that a screenwriter to write the screenplay has been found, and the script will be sent to Will Smith and Don Cheadle. I like both of these actors.

What have you been up to since you wrote the Restavec?
I’ve been to many countries since Restavec was published. It gave me an opportunity to be a guest on Oprah, to speak at the United Nations and to help children in Haiti.

What is your message to all the restaveks out there?
You have a voice in me.

Author photo via Afrik