Title: New Narratives of Haiti
Year: 2013
Issue: 111
Cover image: Images of Haiti: History embedded in Amber series. © 2011 Laurent Dubois and Edouard Duval-Carrié
The day when Haitians as a people and Haiti as a symbol are no longer representatives of or synonymous with poverty, backwardness, and evil is still yet to come.
—Gina Athena Ulysse, “Why Haiti Needs New Narratives Now More than Ever”
Issue 111, “New Narratives of Haiti,” is a step toward answering Ulysse’s call. To this end, Guest Editors Laurent Dubois and Kaiama L. Glover have invited contributors to think about the world in ways that place Haiti at its center. Thought pieces by Madison Smartt Bell, Jonathan Katz, Gina Athena Ulysse and others, as well as translations of Frankétienne, Lyonel Trouillot, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, dispel trenchant clichés that have long plagued representations of Haiti in literature and scholarship. The issue also includes Jamaica Kincaid’s poignant memories of a brother lost to AIDS, and a scholar’s chance discovery of cultural (and genealogical?) links between Cuba and Sierra Leone. Exceptional poetry, fiction, and review essays also take us beyond Haiti to San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi, and Renaissance Europe. Grab a copy for your beach bag.
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Featured Fiction: On the Sounds of Haiti #OpenAccess
by Lyonel Trouillot, translated by Laurent Dubois
In this early passage from Lyonel Trouillot’s recent novel, a Haitian guide, who has just picked up a European visitor at the airport, offers this typology of the sounds of Port-au-Prince.
Contributors: Madison Smartt Bell, Mario Benjamin, Adrienne L. Childs, Emma Christopher, Andrea Chung, Laurent Dubois, Edouard Duval-Carrié, María Frías, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Kaiama L. Glover, Benjamin Hebblethwaite, Biodun Jeyifo, Erol Josué, Jonathan M. Katz, Jamaica Kincaid, Wynnie Lamour, Manuel Mathieu, Nadève Ménard, Wangechi Mutu, Kambui Olujimi, Mariana Past, Pat Phillips, Jacques Pierre, Millery Polyné, Guidel Présumé, Michael Ralph, Kate Ramsey, Amy Sherald, Lyonel Trouillot, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Gina Athena Ulysse, Kangsen Feka Wakai, Dust Wells, Johnathan Wilson