Gorr

Fate, it would seem, is not without a sense of irony. One of our ancestral surnames comes from the word for the pig, our least favorite animal. Our source, Morlet's Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de famille includes several variants of the family name, although the spelling of Gaury does not appear. It seems to be a lesson common surname nowadays.

Pays sans chapeau

 Dany Laferrière's Pays sans chapeau is a hilarious novel about Vieux Os's return to Port-au-Prince after 20 years of exile. As an excuse to practice one's French, Pays is very rewarding while also entertaining. As a novel of and about Port-au-Prince through the dreamed country and the real country, the reader is taken on a spiritual and material journey through the various quarters of the city. The narrator has a number of amusing experiences on the way as he reconnects with old friends Manu (based on Manno Charlemagne?), Philippe, Lisa, Antoinette, and his mother and aunt. Da, unfortunately, has passed away. 

As one would expect, the author seamlessly fuses real people with fictionalized versions of themselves, drawing on ethnologist J.B. Romain and real places or sites in the city. In addition, the mix of the supernatural with the depressing reality of Port-au-Prince in the 1990s alludes to US imperialism, the end of the Duvalier regime, and the amazing feat of Bombardopolis residents who can survive without eating. Numerous references to vaudou, Haiti as a grand cemetery, local paintings, and the class divide in the city make it clear that while the author has not been to Haiti in 20 years, some things have remained the same.

For this blogger, Laferrière's talent lay in his penchant for the comic while weaving together stories based on real people. Here in Pays sans chapeau we see this skill brilliantly used to bring to life Vieux Os's mother, the city of Port-au-Prince, and the migrant's experience. Who could forget the Jehovah's Witness driver who takes his riders on detours to drop off money for the mothers of his children? The gossip in the taxi? Conversations between Vieux Os and Philippe about Petionville? Or his mother, Marie, and her worst nightmare of falling down the social pyramid to live in Martissant? Anyone who has visited Port-au-Prince or similar cities will know these characters, and the difficult conditions they face. Pays sans chapeau confronts that with an ironic twist of the migrant who is an insider-outsider to his land of birth, thereby putting him in a unique position of being able to confront the shadows of the past in the present.

Le charme des après-midi sans fin

Le charme des après-midi sans fin excels as a sequel of sorts to An Aroma of Coffee. Although I have yet to read the latter in the original French, Le charme reads like a spiritual successor to that endearing story of Vieux Os and Da in Petit-Goave. Here, however, the end of an idyllic childhood is depicted in horrific detail as the residents of Petit-Goave endure the capriciousness of Port-au-Prince, the national government, mass arrests, and a curfew which throws the social world of the town off.

Vieux Os's innocent childhood is shattered by the political repression, social inequality, and gendered expectations of life in a provincial Haitian town. Indeed, there is an overt reference to Jeune Haiti as the cause for the arrest of all prominent men in Petit-Goave, including a notary, Lone, who is helping Da in her battle to retain her house. Duvalier is never directly invoked, but his shadow extends into the city as armed thugs enforce the curfew. Young Vieux Os sees this, although he, like the reader, is not allowed to hear the full details about the mass arrests.

While certainly autobiographical and important as a transition to Vieux Os's adulthood and Port-au-Prince, the novel enthralls the reader into provincial life in a small city. Everyone knows everyone else and retains ties to marchandes, paysans, priests (both Catholic and Vodou), and travelers. Port-au-Prince is resented by locals for appointing local administrators and thinking themselves above the rest of the country. However, the decaying world of provincial Haiti cannot maintain itself, and the youth are on the move to Port-au-Prince. 

Vieux Os's grandfather, for instance, was once a prosperous coffee trader, but the boom ended long ago. Le charme captures all of this quite well through the eyes of a child. We are able to experience his sense of wonder, love, curiosity, and trauma as conditions beyond his control eventually compel his move to Port-au-Prince to live with his mother. As one can expect from this author, there are enough humorous vignettes of the social world of 1960s Petit-Goave to leave the reader wanting more. However, just as in the real world, childhood does not last forever. 

Zoune chez sa ninnaine

With novelists such as Justin Lhérisson, it becomes easier to see the literary traditions of Haiti over the last century. Utilizing lodyans and incorporating Creole dialogue allowed Lhérisson to explore language, class relations, society, and culture in a playful manner. Zoune chez sa ninnaine has a wonderful sense of humor, which brought to mind more contemporary Haitian and Caribbean writers. Lhérisson, in this novel, addresses a number of social ills plaguing Haiti during the Boyer years, juxtaposing Zoune and her travails with her godmother and Cadet Jacques to the anti-Boyer movement of Hérard Dumesle and the miserable conditions in the countryside, where Zoune's peasant parents lived.

The novel begins with a description of her parents, the miserable conditions Zoune experienced as a sickly and tired child and, eventually, their plans to baptise her several years after her birth due to superstitious fears. This, eventually, leads them to having to find a godmother for their child. They later send Zoune to live with this well-to-do woman, Madame Boyote. Thanks to Boyote, Zoune recovers from her emaciated, sickly condition and develops into a beautiful young woman. Boyote sees to it that she receives first communion, gives her some education (at a time where, according to the narrator, there were maybe 19 or 20 primary schools on the entire island), and employs her in her business. 

However, the growing prosperity of Boyote attracts negative attention from envious rivals and people with nothing to do. Lhérisson satirizes in a hilarious manner the social evils of Haiti as many city residents try to destroy Boyote through rumors of sorcery, magic, lesbianism, and more. The humor continues with the infamous Cadet Jacques, a military man of many mistresses. He will go to extreme lengths in his sexual conquests, including abusing his powers to coerce young women to sleep with him (such as arresting their families). In fact, Cadet Jacques justified his behavior by pointing to President Boyer, a man who also had several mistresses, which the narrator uses as an opportunity to lament the lack of role models among Haitian leaders. Lhérisson probably did believe that with education and moralisation, the peasantry and lower classes could excel, but corrupt leaders like Cadet Jacques ensure ignorance, misery, or suffering prevail.

The rest of the story is well-known. Beautiful Zoune attracts several male admirers, including Cadet Jacques, who takes Boyote as his mistress. Her business grows more prosperous, but Cadet Jacques begins making inappropriate passes at her goddaughter. Eventually, he tries to rape her. Later, the entire city finds out about the affair and Zoune leaves her godmother, pursuing a life on her own. A number of social problems are raised throughout the book, particularly the exclusion of peasants from the "citadins" in Port-au-Prince, class relations, the limited spheres for women, and the misrule of Boyer.

What particularly stands out, however, is Lhérisson's use of humor to convey social commentary. Golimin, the narrative voice, as well as the characters themselves, speak in French, Creole, and, in some cases, creolized French. Frere Philomène's creolized French at Zoune's first communion celebration, for instance, demonstrates the creative ways language can be modified to more closely capture the Haitian reality. The Creole phrases, proverbs, insults, and modifiers inject an oral breath of life to the dialogue (including music) while also illustrating nuances in social relations. The novel abounds in references to sorcery, nicknames, popular beliefs and the religious melange of Catholicism and Vodou, bringing to mind the way subsequent authors like Laferrière are indebted to Lhérisson's generation. This is all quite creative while entertaining Haitian audiences a few years after the Centennial of the same ongoing problems. Sadly, it remains relevant in the 21st century, too.