Dany Laferrière: Tout bouge autour de moi (2011)

Once – on a twelve-night stopover between Miami and Belize – I went to Haiti, staying most of the time in the capital Port-au-Prince ('t' unpronounced). It was a tremendous experience, and has left me with memories as vivid as if it were yesterday. It has also led me to follow later events in the history of Haiti, including its literature. Before saying a few words about Dany Laferrière's memories of Haiti, I speak here of my own.

My visit was in the eighties shortly before the fall of the horrendous dictator Baby Doc (who died last October), when the radio jolted you into wakefulness with a military chant in which the words 'Vive Duvalier, président à vie' are the most memorable. In the heart of the capital the dreaded tontons macoutes policed the streets. And although the people I met openly expressed their hatred of them, I otherwise found very little evidence of open political dissent: indeed, and as Dany Laferrière notes, the people in this desperately poor country were proud of the contradictory opulence of the presidential palace.

The poverty is perhaps the first thing that I noticed on arrival in the city. Tourists have never flocked here, and a white person is a rare sight, a symbol of wealth and therefore a potential source of revenue, and I met a number beggars who approached me with highly elaborate tactics, although those offering to be my guide were more common. I saw wooden shacks that were homes for so many people, and saw a whole family bathing in muddy rain water that had collected in a hollow at the side of a street-cum-dirt track.

I also encountered hostility that was sometimes casual, sometimes malicious: the girl in a slum area in Cap-Haïtien who laughed when my foot got stuck in a gutter and said 'C'est bien fait pour toi' ('It serves you right'); and the guy way to the back of me on the empty road to Pétionville who yelled 'Branleur!' ('Wanker!) at me: I turned to look and he verified the exclamation with 'Ouais, toi!' ('Yeah, you!').

These of course are just isolated incidents, and my memory leaves me with far more positive things. The people smile brightly through their pain and their poverty. If you're lost or in difficulty they'll help you and expect nothing in return. I went on a long, gloriously noisy bus ride to Cap-Haïtien, a sleepy adolescent girl lolling her head on my shoulder, her mother next to her bouncing about with the rough ride and to the sounds of the local Tabou Combo band on the bus cassette, all the time chewing on a huge stick of sugar cane. In the hotel in Port-au-Prince a businessman  from Harlem introduced me to la caille, the local name for the mancala board game: he was wearing a tee-shirt with the logo 'Why worry? Play warri' (another name for mancala), but went cold on me when I bought a far superior mahogany version near the central market for $4, whereas he was selling his boards for $10.

I don't think I need to mention the tap-taps because if anyone knows anything about Haiti at all it's the crazy form of transport there. Dany Laferrière, though, does briefly mention them in Tout bouge autour de moi (lit. 'Everything Around Me Is Moving'), his description of the earthquake in Haiti, which took place on at 16:23 on 12 January 2010: the exact time emblazoned on Haitians' minds. Estimates of deaths vary wildly, but perhaps 160,000 lives were lost.

Laferrière was born in Haiti and had left it long before my visit: he worked on the 'opposition' paper Le Petit Samedi Soir, but emigrated to Québec in 1976 following the assassination of his colleague Raymond Gasner. Tout bouge autour de moi was written from the time that Laferrière returned to Haiti for a Haitian-Canadian literary conference, and just after he'd ordered lobster at the Karibe hotel in Port-au-Prince and started on the bread the world moved and Haiti was thrown into chaos.

The book doesn't attempt to be an account of the earthquake, but simply describes the state of the capital of the country as Laferrière witnessed it at the time of the catastrophe. It is related in episodic form in over one hundred different sections which are not necessarily linear and include his return to Québec, then his return to Haiti again not long after due to his aunt Renée's death, and there's even a short piece about a woman in her sixties greeting him in Montréal after recognising him from television.

I know what Laferrière's talking about here, know both the places he mentions and easily recognise the Haiti he depicts, and I'm fascinated when he describes seeing such Haitian writers as Frankétienne and Lionel Trouillet, although I doubt that a great number of people will experience a great deal from this book, and I'm left with an impression of messiness, lack of coherence. That may be because I've read this short account over four days in between which I've been following the insane activities in Paris. Dunno, but I'm now starting to read Laferrière's Pays sans chapeau, which is a fictionalised version of an earlier return by Laferrière to Haiti. It's described as a novel, and I'm hoping to be more enthusiastic about this one.

Haitian Literature: Frankétienne

Toussaint L'Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian revolution. The Haitian writer and artist Frankétienne, dubbed ’Monsieur Haiti’ by none other than Aimé Césaire, lost his house completely in the earthquake, but survived, saying: ‘I don’t believe in reincarnation, but if offered a return ticket, I’ll certainly ask to come back to this shithole’: This link is to a French inteview with him: Frankétienne

Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat (1969- ) was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and was twelve years old when she left with her family for New York. She writes in English and her first novel was Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), which in part concerns the young Haitian girl Sophie's relationship with her mother, who is speaking here about the 'testing', a degrading old custom to which she subjects Sophie:

'When I was a girl, my mother used to test us to see if we were virgins. She would put her finger in our very private parts and see if it would go inside. Your Tante Atie hated it. She used to scream like a pig in a slaugherhouse. The way my mother was raised, a mother was supposed to do that to her daughter until the daughter is married. It is her responsibilty to keep her pure.'*

Her mother describes her rape and the conception of Sophie rather more laconically, but no less dramatically for that: 'A man grabbed me from the side of the road, pulled me into a cane field, and put you in my body.'

Krik? Krak! (1996) refers to a storyteller asking if he can tell a story, and the enthusiastic reply. It is a book of stories of the myths of Haiti, the family, the horrors of the tontons macoutes, the contrasts between the poorest country in the western hemisphere and the riches of north-east America, but most of all it is a series of stories about stories. In the longest story, 'Caroline's Wedding', the narrator Grace remembers a story told by her father about the Haitian dictator Papa Doc:

'God once called a conference of world leaders. He invited the president of France, the president of the United States, the president of Russia, Italy, Germany, and China, as well as our own president, His Excellency, the President for Life Papa Doc Duvalier. When the president of France reached the gates of Heaven, God got up from his throne to greet him. When the president of the United States reached the gates of Heaven, God got up to greet him as well. So, too, with the presidents of Russia, Italy, Germany, and China.

'When it was our president's turn, His Excellency, the president for Life Papa Doc Duvalier, God did not get up from his throne to greet him. All the angels were stunned and puzzled. They did not understand God's rude behavior. So they elected a representative to go up to God and question Him.

'"God", said the representative, "you have been so cordial to all the other presidents. You have gotten up from your throne to greet them at the gates of heaven as soon as they have entered. Why do you not get up for Papa Doc Duvalier? Is it because he is a black president? You have always told us to overlook the color of men. Why have you chosen to treat the black president, Papa Doc Duvalier, in this fashion?"

'God looked at the representative angel as though He was about to admit something He did not want to.

'"Look, he said. "I am not getting up for Papa Doc Duvalier because I am afraid that if I get up, he will take my throne and will never give it back."'

Edwidge Danticat is a great storyteller. Only a fool would read this 'joke' as a racist statement, and only a fool would fail to see that this story illustrates just as much the tragedy that is Haiti as the hell that Haiti is now undergoing.

*The structure of the title Breath, Eyes, Memory, written by a 24-year-old Danticat, invokes another very powerful book about Haiti, the suppressed Amour, colère et folie (1968) by Marie Chauvet, who died when Danticat was seven. Simone de Beauvoir was greatly impressed by that strong criticism of the Duvalier regime, but as a result of its publication, Chauvet was forced to flee to New York.