Haitian literature
Encyclopedia
Haitian literature has been closely intertwined with the political life of Haiti
. Haitian intellectuals turned successively or simultaneously to France, the UK, the United States, and African traditions. At the same time, Haitian history has always been a rich source of inspiration for literature, with its heroes, its upheavals, its cruelties and its rites.
In 1804, Fligneau's play The Haitian expatriate made its debut. But the ruling classes and the intellectual elites in the emerging Haitian state remain imbued with French culture. Literature developed a patriotic vein that recounted the deeds of convulsive independence. It adopted, over the 19th century, the successive literary currents coming from France: classicism, romanticism, Parnassianism, and symbolism. Major authors of this period include Antoine Dupré
(1782–1816), Juste Chanlatte
(1766–1828), François Romain Lhérisson (1798–1859) and Jules Solime Milscent
(1778–1842), who founded the journal L'Abeille haïtienne in 1829.
In this period of intense literary turmoils, newspapers like Le Républicain and later L'Union opened their pages to the first romantics. L'Observateur, created in 1819, published romantic poetry. In 1836 the group of the Cénacle was formed, with the romantic poets Ignace Nau
(1808–1845) and Coriolan Ardouin
(1812–1838). Later Oswald Durand
(1840–1906) and Massillon Coicou (1867–1908) represented this movement.
Theatrical production was equality rich and important, parallel to the emergence of melodrama in France. All genres were represented: prose drama, tragedy, comedy, and works reflecting current and changing mores.
At the end of the 19th century, Haitian literature was imbued with the prestige of the French language and almost exclusively oriented towards Paris. Touching only the literate francophone minority, it ignored Haitians' daily lives, despite a strong patriotic dimension.
, Georges Sylvain
) continued to use France as a point of reference. This vein continued during the first part of the 20th century with poets such as Dantès Bellegarde
and Ida Faubert
.
The American occupation, starting 1915, was a shock. The génération de la gifle (slap generation) created successive militant literary magazines: La Revue de la ligue de la jeunesse haïtienne (1916), La Nouvelle Ronde (1925), and above all La Revue indigène (1927). The Indigeniste movement, through its founder Jean Price-Mars
invited writers to start creating rather than imitating, that is to draw from the African roots of the Haitian people. The resistance was also expressed in the oral culture, stories, traditions and legends.
At the same time, social realism in literature was advanced by Jacques Roumain
(Gouverneurs de la rosée, 1944) and René Depestre
. The novel depicted the darkness of peasant life in the country. Stephen Alexis
, René Depestre, and Gérald Bloncourt
founded the magazine La Ruche in 1945.
In 1946, André Breton
was appointed by the Director of Cultural Affairs in Paris to establish relations with Haitian intellectuals.
In the midst of a student strike opposing the Lescot government, their speeches resonated with the insurgents, led in particular by René Depestre. However, the surrealist influence on Haitian literature remained small, though real. It is, for example, openly claimed by Magloire Saint-Aude, collaborator of Griots.
The réalisme merveilleux of René Depestre and Jacques Stephen Alexis
in the 1950s would be much more fruitful. Contemporary Haitian literature is part of the Latin American culture.
Living in the US or Canada:
Living in France:
In any event there are more than 200 creole or creole-related languages. Whether based on English, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch or French, as in Haiti, creole is the language of collective memory, carrying a symbol of resistance. Creole is found in stories, songs, poetry (Saint-John Perse, Aimé Césaire, Derek Walcott), and novels (Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphaël Confiant).
Despite Haiti's independence, French has remained the country's official language. French, a language of great cultural prestige, was spoken by the elite, and creole did not enter the literary field until the second half of the 20th century. The indianists of the 1930s and the Négritude
movement (incarnated in Haiti by Jean Price-Marts) emphasized the African origins of Antillean people, giving it an identity lost in deportation and later colonization. But, for them, Creole was still considered an impure language of slavery.
The Créolité
movement, which succeeded them, rehabilitated the Creole, which no longer was only the language of slavery, but "that which we made together to survive". A shift was brought about in Haitian literature, from French to Creole, or du français vers le créole, or rather a dialogue between the two languages.
Creole is used frequently in poetry and drama. Frankétienne, for example, writes his plays only in Creole. An oral language, Creole is particularly suited in these genres elevating the voice. (Even if many Haitians speak and understand Creole, not all can read it.) It novels, the two languages are sometimes used together, creating a new and original way of writing.
The choice of language for writing is an important issue in contemporary creative writing, especially for writers residing in Haiti.
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
. Haitian intellectuals turned successively or simultaneously to France, the UK, the United States, and African traditions. At the same time, Haitian history has always been a rich source of inspiration for literature, with its heroes, its upheavals, its cruelties and its rites.
The nineteenth century
In the eighteenth century, settlers published descriptive and political works in France. Haitian literature has its origins in the country's independence.In 1804, Fligneau's play The Haitian expatriate made its debut. But the ruling classes and the intellectual elites in the emerging Haitian state remain imbued with French culture. Literature developed a patriotic vein that recounted the deeds of convulsive independence. It adopted, over the 19th century, the successive literary currents coming from France: classicism, romanticism, Parnassianism, and symbolism. Major authors of this period include Antoine Dupré
Antoine Dupré
Antoine Dupré was an early Haitian poet and playwright. He was one of the first published poets and one of the first performed playwrights of independent Haiti. He is known for his historical works, such as the poems Hymne à la Liberté and Le Rêve d'un Haytien, and the plays La Mort du Général...
(1782–1816), Juste Chanlatte
Juste Chanlatte
Juste Chanlatte was a Haitian poet and playwright. He served as secretary to King Henri I of the Kingdom of Haiti. Chanlatte was born in Port-au-Prince and educated in France...
(1766–1828), François Romain Lhérisson (1798–1859) and Jules Solime Milscent
Jules Solime Milscent
Jules Solime Milscent was a Haitian fabulist, poet, and politician. He was a mulatto, born in Grande-Rivière du Nord to a white French father and a free black mother. Educated in France, Milscent co-founded the periodical L'Abeille Haytienne and served in several government positions, including a...
(1778–1842), who founded the journal L'Abeille haïtienne in 1829.
In this period of intense literary turmoils, newspapers like Le Républicain and later L'Union opened their pages to the first romantics. L'Observateur, created in 1819, published romantic poetry. In 1836 the group of the Cénacle was formed, with the romantic poets Ignace Nau
Ignace Nau
Ignace Nau was a Haitian poet and storyteller. Born in Port-au-Prince, Nau studied in a renowned military school in Haiti before attending the Catholic University of New York. After returning to Haiti, Nau founded a literary society named "The School of 1836" with his brother, Emile Nau, and the...
(1808–1845) and Coriolan Ardouin
Coriolan Ardouin
Coriolan Ardouin was a Haitian romantic poet. Ardouin left only one work before his early death: a compilation of poems entitled Reliques d'un Poète Haïtien , published posthumously in 1837....
(1812–1838). Later Oswald Durand
Oswald Durand
Oswald Durand was a Haitian poet and politician. Durand is said to be "to Haiti what Shakespeare is to England and Dante to Italy." Among his most famous works are Choucoune, a lyrical poem praising the beauty of a Haitian woman, and Chant National, a lyrical historic poem which became as popular...
(1840–1906) and Massillon Coicou (1867–1908) represented this movement.
Theatrical production was equality rich and important, parallel to the emergence of melodrama in France. All genres were represented: prose drama, tragedy, comedy, and works reflecting current and changing mores.
At the end of the 19th century, Haitian literature was imbued with the prestige of the French language and almost exclusively oriented towards Paris. Touching only the literate francophone minority, it ignored Haitians' daily lives, despite a strong patriotic dimension.
The twentieth century
The twentieth century opened with the creation of the magazine La Ronde by Pétion Gérome in 1895. The poets in this intimate and delicate school (Etzer VilaireEtzer Vilaire
Etzer Vilaire was a Haitian poet. Born in Jérémie, Vilaire attended law school and wrote poetry in his spare time. He was a member of the literary society La Ronde, and his most remembered works are Page d'Amour , Dix Hommes Noirs , Années Tendres , and Nouveaux Poèmes .-References:...
, Georges Sylvain
Georges Sylvain
Georges Sylvain was a Haitian poet, lawyer and diplomat. Born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, Sylvain studied in his native city before attending school in Paris and receiving a law degree. After returning to Haiti, he founded a law school and two periodicals, La Patrie and, in 1922, l'Union...
) continued to use France as a point of reference. This vein continued during the first part of the 20th century with poets such as Dantès Bellegarde
Dantès Bellegarde
Dantès Bellegarde was a Haitian historian and diplomat. He is best known for his works Histoire du Peuple Haïtien , La Résistance Haïtienne , Haïti et ses Problèmes , and Pour une Haïti Heureuse .Born in Port-au-Prince, Bellegarde served as Minister Plenipotentiary to Paris in 1921 and to...
and Ida Faubert
Ida Faubert
Ida Faubert was a Haitian writer, daughter of the former president of Haïti, Lysius Salomon....
.
The American occupation, starting 1915, was a shock. The génération de la gifle (slap generation) created successive militant literary magazines: La Revue de la ligue de la jeunesse haïtienne (1916), La Nouvelle Ronde (1925), and above all La Revue indigène (1927). The Indigeniste movement, through its founder Jean Price-Mars
Jean Price-Mars
Jean Price-Mars was a Haitian writer. Born in Grande Rivière du Nord, Price-Mars obtained a degree in medicine and worked as a diplomat.-Negritude movement:...
invited writers to start creating rather than imitating, that is to draw from the African roots of the Haitian people. The resistance was also expressed in the oral culture, stories, traditions and legends.
At the same time, social realism in literature was advanced by Jacques Roumain
Jacques Roumain
Jacques Roumain was a Haitian writer, politician, and advocate of Communism. He is considered one of the most prominent figures in Haitian literature. Although poorly known in the English-speaking world, Roumain has significant following in Europe, and is renowned in the Caribbean and Latin America...
(Gouverneurs de la rosée, 1944) and René Depestre
René Depestre
René Depestre is a Haitian poet and communist. He lived in Cuba as an exile from the Duvalier regime for many years and was a founder of the Casa de las Americas publishing house. He is best known for his poetry.-Life:...
. The novel depicted the darkness of peasant life in the country. Stephen Alexis
Stephen Alexis
Stephen Mesmin Alexis, , was a Haitian novelist and diplomat. Born in Gonaïves, Alexis served as Haiti's ambassador to the United Kingdom and represented Haiti at the United Nations....
, René Depestre, and Gérald Bloncourt
Gerald Bloncourt
Gérald Bloncourt , also known as Gérard Bloncourt, is a Haitian painter and photographer resident in the suburbs of Paris, France. Born in the small city of Bainet, in Haiti's Southeast Department, Bloncourt is a founding member of the Centre d'Art. Besides painting watercolors and frescoes, he...
founded the magazine La Ruche in 1945.
In 1946, André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
was appointed by the Director of Cultural Affairs in Paris to establish relations with Haitian intellectuals.
In the midst of a student strike opposing the Lescot government, their speeches resonated with the insurgents, led in particular by René Depestre. However, the surrealist influence on Haitian literature remained small, though real. It is, for example, openly claimed by Magloire Saint-Aude, collaborator of Griots.
The réalisme merveilleux of René Depestre and Jacques Stephen Alexis
Jacques Stephen Alexis
Jacques Stephen Alexis was a Haitian novelist. He is best known for his novels Compère Général Soleil , Les Arbres Musiciens , and L'Espace d'un Cillement , and for his collection of short stories, Romancero aux Etoiles .Alexis was born in Gonaïves, the son of novelist and diplomat Stephen Alexis...
in the 1950s would be much more fruitful. Contemporary Haitian literature is part of the Latin American culture.
Haitian diaspora
The Duvalier regime saw the exodus of many Haitian intellectuals. The so-called writers of the diaspora engaged in a militant literature, treating Haiti in terms of memory, suffering, and guilt of being far from one's land. Books such as Jean Métellus's Louis Vortex (1992, réédition 2005) depict the daily life of Haitian exiles in their host countries. It can be difficult to define what constitutes a Haitian writer when many Haitians no longer live in Haiti and do not necessarily write about their home country.Some contemporary authors
Living in Haiti:- FrankétienneFrankétienneFrankétienne is an author, poet, playwright, musician and painter. He has written in both French and Haitian creole...
(1936 -) - Lyonel Trouillot (1956 -)
- Gary Victor (1958 -)
Living in the US or Canada:
- Anthony Phelps (1928 -)
- Émile OllivierÉmile OllivierOlivier Émile Ollivier was a French statesman. Although a republican, he served as a cabinet minister under Emperor Napoleon III and led the process of turning his regime into a "liberal Empire".-Early life and career:Émile Ollivier was born in Marseille...
(1940–2002) - Gary KlangGary KlangGary Klang , is a Haitian-Canadian poet and novelist. Since 2007, he is the President of the prestigious “Conseil des Écrivains francophones d’Amérique” . Klang's work is very rich. It includes novels, poetry, short stories and essays...
(1940 -) - Josaphat-Robert LargeJosaphat-Robert LargeJosaphat-Robert Large is a Haitian-American poet, novelist and art critic. His novel Les terres entourées de larmes [Shore surrounded with tears] won the prestigious Prix littéraire des Caraïbes in 2003...
(1942 -) - Joel Des Rosiers (1951 -)
- Dany LaferrièreDany LaferrièreDany Laferrière is a francophone Haitian and Canadian novelist and journalist.Born in Port-au-Prince, Haïti, and raised in Petit Goâve, Laferrière worked as a journalist in Haïti before moving to Canada in 1976...
(1953 -) - Marie-Célie AgnantMarie-Célie AgnantMarie-Célie Agnant is a French-speaking Quebecer, who has lived in Canada since 1970.a writer of poems, novels and novellas, she has also published children's books. She is also a storyteller and occasionally appears with the Bread & Puppet Theater of Vermont. Her works have been translated into...
- Stanley Péan (1966 -)
- Edwidge Danticat (1969 -)
Living in France:
- René DepestreRené DepestreRené Depestre is a Haitian poet and communist. He lived in Cuba as an exile from the Duvalier regime for many years and was a founder of the Casa de las Americas publishing house. He is best known for his poetry.-Life:...
(1926 -) - Jean Métellus (1937 -)
- Jean-Claude Charles (1949 - 2008)
- Louis-Philippe DalembertLouis-Philippe DalembertLouis-Philippe Dalembert is a Haitian poet and novelist. He writes in both French and Haitian creole. His works have been translated into several languages...
(1962-)
The language issue
Two hypotheses exist on the birth of creole, a language whose history is intimately linked to colonization. One suggests that creole was born from the necessity for different communities to communicate among themselves. Under this theory, Haitian creole developed in the 17th century on Turtle Island, where enslaved Africans, buccaneers, privateers and European settlers lived together. The other theory suggests that creole was born on the Portuguese Atlantic coast of Africa in the fifteenth century and it was then "exported" via the slave trade.In any event there are more than 200 creole or creole-related languages. Whether based on English, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch or French, as in Haiti, creole is the language of collective memory, carrying a symbol of resistance. Creole is found in stories, songs, poetry (Saint-John Perse, Aimé Césaire, Derek Walcott), and novels (Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphaël Confiant).
Despite Haiti's independence, French has remained the country's official language. French, a language of great cultural prestige, was spoken by the elite, and creole did not enter the literary field until the second half of the 20th century. The indianists of the 1930s and the Négritude
Négritude
Négritude is a literary and ideological movement, developed by francophone black intellectuals, writers, and politiciansin France in the 1930s by a group that included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianan Léon Damas.The Négritude...
movement (incarnated in Haiti by Jean Price-Marts) emphasized the African origins of Antillean people, giving it an identity lost in deportation and later colonization. But, for them, Creole was still considered an impure language of slavery.
The Créolité
Créolité
Créolité is a literary movement first developed in the 1980s by Martinican writers Patrick Chamoiseau, Jean Bernabé and Raphaël Confiant. The trio published Eloge de la créolité in 1989 as a response to the perceived inadequacies of the négritude movement...
movement, which succeeded them, rehabilitated the Creole, which no longer was only the language of slavery, but "that which we made together to survive". A shift was brought about in Haitian literature, from French to Creole, or du français vers le créole, or rather a dialogue between the two languages.
Creole is used frequently in poetry and drama. Frankétienne, for example, writes his plays only in Creole. An oral language, Creole is particularly suited in these genres elevating the voice. (Even if many Haitians speak and understand Creole, not all can read it.) It novels, the two languages are sometimes used together, creating a new and original way of writing.
The choice of language for writing is an important issue in contemporary creative writing, especially for writers residing in Haiti.