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Of all the literary and cultural traditions in the Caribbean, none has produced a body of work as rich, diverse, and challenging as that of the French-speaking islands. Informed by the great French traditions of intellectual inquiry and artistic innovation, the francophone Caribbean tradition has seen the emergence of artists, activists, and theorists such as Aimé Césaire, Léon-Gontran Damas, René Ménil, Suzanne Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Jean Bernabé, Raphael Confiant, Maryse Condé, Jean–Price Mars, Jacques Roumain, Jacques-Stephen Alexis, René Depestre, Frankétienne, Émile Ollivier, Marie Chauvet, Dany Laferrière, and Edwidge Danticat, to name only a few. The French–speaking islands and French Guyana have therefore a long, established tradition of prolific and incisive intellectual and artistic output, and have had considerable influence across the whole Caribbean literary and cultural spectrum. Until ten or fifteen years ago, the départements d'outre mer were in large part the main focus of any analysis of Francophone Caribbean culture. Since then, however, the other important French– and Creole-speaking nation, Haiti, has been the subject of unprecedented attention, both from scholars and the general public. Independent since 1804, the «first black republic» in the New World is at once a symbol of anti–colonial resistance and of postcolonial decay and economic, political, and social problems. At once years ahead of and years behind the rest of the Caribbean, Haiti demands critical attention, and in this article, I will summarize some of the major movements in Haitian literary culture, before focusing on the Duvalier period and the ways in which contemporary artists address the memory of that most traumatic period. ; De las tradiciones literarias y culturales del Caribe, ninguna ha producido un corpus tan rico, diverso y desafiante como el de las islas francófonas. Inspirado por las grandes tradiciones francesas de la búsqueda intelectual y la innovación artística, la ...

Of all the literary and cultural traditions in the Caribbean, none has produced a body of work as rich, diverse, and challenging as that of the French-speaking islands. Informed by the great French traditions of intellectual inquiry and artistic innovation, the francophone Caribbean tradition has seen the emergence of artists, activists, and theorists such as Aimé Césaire, Léon-Gontran Damas, René Ménil, Suzanne Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Jean Bernabé, Raphael Confiant, Maryse Condé, Jean–Price Mars, Jacques Roumain, Jacques-Stephen Alexis, René Depestre, Frankétienne, Émile Ollivier, Marie Chauvet, Dany Laferrière, and Edwidge Danticat, to name only a few. The French–speaking islands and French Guyana have therefore a long, established tradition of prolific and incisive intellectual and artistic output, and have had considerable influence across the whole Caribbean literary and cultural spectrum. Until ten or fifteen years ago, the départements d'outre mer were in large part the main focus of any analysis of Francophone Caribbean culture. Since then, however, the other important French– and Creole-speaking nation, Haiti, has been the subject of unprecedented attention, both from scholars and the general public. Independent since 1804, the «first black republic» in the New World is at once a symbol of anti–colonial resistance and of postcolonial decay and economic, political, and social problems. At once years ahead of and years behind the rest of the Caribbean, Haiti demands critical attention, and in this article, I will summarize some of the major movements in Haitian literary culture, before focusing on the Duvalier period and the ways in which contemporary artists address the memory of that most traumatic period. ; De las tradiciones literarias y culturales del Caribe, ninguna ha producido un corpus tan rico, diverso y desafiante como el de las islas francófonas. Inspirado por las grandes tradiciones francesas de la búsqueda intelectual y la innovación artística, la tradición del Caribe francófono ha visto el surgimiento de artistas, activistas, y teóricos como Aimé Césaire, Léon-Gontran Damas, René Ménil, Suzanne Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Jean Bernabé, Rápale Confiant, Maryse Condé, Jean-Price Mars, Jacques Roumain, Jacques-Stephen Alexis, René Depestre, Frankétienne, Émile Ollivier, Marie Chauvet, Dany Lafèrriere, y Edwidge Danticat por solo nombrar a unos pocos. Las islas francófonas y la Guayana Francesa tienen por tanto una larga y bien establecida tradición de producción intelectual y artística prolífica e incisiva, y han tenido una influencia considerable a través de todo el entorno literario y cultural caribeño. Hasta hace diez o quince años, los départements d'outre mer eran en gran parte el foco principal de cualquier análisis de la cultura francófona caribeña. Desde entonces, sin embargo, la otra nación de habla francófona y créole, Haití, ha sido objeto de una atención sin precedentes, por parte de investigadores así como del público en general. Independiente desde 1804, la «primera república negra» del Nuevo Mundo es un símbolo tanto de resistencia anticolonial como de declive postcolonial, así como de problemas económicos, políticos y sociales. A la vez avanzada y rezagada en el tiempo respecto al resto del Caribe, Haití merece la atención de la crítica. En este artículo haré un recuento de los principales movimientos de la cultura literaria en Haití, para luego centrarme en el período de Duvalier y en las estrategias que los artistas contemporáneos han utilizado para indagar sobre la memoria de ese periodo tan traumático.

What constitutes a Haitian postearthquake novel? Does such a work require the author to present to a greater or lesser degree people and situations that relate to the disaster and its ongoing effects? Is a work written after the earthquake but which does not mention it still a postearthquake novel? This article engages with some of the issues facing Haitian writers following the earthquake through a close discussion of a novel that does in fact write directly of the disaster and its aftermath: Kettly Mars's Aux frontières de la soif.

In this article, I explore the idea of the hybrid, creolized subject in Haiti as a kind of living phantom. To do so, I refer initially to the notion of the "Creole Dessalines," the idea that Haiti's first leader was island-born and culturally creole. I then move forward in time 200 years, to just before the bicentenary, a time that seemed to usher back into Haitian society figures that appear to echo in many ways the creole Dessalines in their ambiguous, contradictory values, actions, and relations to broader Haitian society. These figures are the so-called Chimères, the term used to refer to the gangs from the shantytowns of Port-au-Prince who were used in the service of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government and who developed a reputation for extreme violence, used against the antigovernment popular movement. Beginning with a discussion of the origins of the Chimères, I will then focus on three works in which the Chimères figure prominently: the documentary films Ghosts of Cité Soleil and Haïti, la fin des chimères, and Lyonel Trouillot's Bicentenaire. In all but Trouillot's work, the prominent Chimères brothers known as Billy and Tupac are featured, which allows one to move from the general conceptions of the Chimères into the particular realities of these individual lives.