Haiti Noir (Akashic Noir) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1936070650 ISBN 13: 9781936070657

Verlag: Akashic Books,U.S., 2010

Inhaltsangabe

"A wide-ranging collection from the beloved but besieged Caribbean island . . . The 36th entry in Akashic's Noir series (which ranges from Bronx to Delhi to Twin Cities) is beautifully edited, with a spectrum of voices." --Kirkus Reviews

"This anthology will give American readers a complex and nuanced portrait of the real Haiti not seen on the evening news and introduce them to some original and wonderful writers." --Library Journal

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.

Brand-new stories by: Edwidge Danticat, Rodney Saint-Éloi, Madison Smartt Bell, Gary Victor, M.J. Fievre, Mark Kurlansky, Marvin Victor, Josaphat-Robert Large, Marie Lily Cerat, Yanick Lahens, Louis-Philippe Dalembert, Kettly Mars, Marie Ketsia Theodore-Pharel, Evelyne Trouillot, Katia D. Ulysse, Ibi Aanu Zoboi, Nadine Pinede, and Patrick Sylvain.

From the introduction by Edwidge Danticat:

"I began working on this anthology about a year before January 12, 2010, when Haiti was struck by its worst natural disaster in over two hundred years. The world knows now that more than two hundred thousand people died and over a million lost their homes in Haiti's capital and the surrounding cities of Léogâne, Petit-Goâve, and Jacmel. As I am writing these words, survivors remain huddled by the thousands in displacement camps, most shielding themselves from intermittent rain with nothing but wooden posts and bedsheets.

"Even before the earthquake, life was not easy in Haiti. There was always the risk of dying from hunger, an infectious disease, a natural disaster, or a crime. But there was also hope, laughter, and boundless creativity. Haitian creativity has always been one of the country's most identifiable survival traits. Whether expressed in vibrant and colorful paintings, double entendre-filled spiritual or party music, or the poignant, humorous, erotic, lyrical (and yes, also dark) short stories and novels of its writers, Haiti's more nuanced and complex face often comes across in its arts . . .

"I can honestly say that, in spite of the difficult circumstances in Haiti right now, I have never felt a greater sense of joy working on any collective project than I have on this book."

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

EDWIDGE DANTICAT was born in Haiti and moved to the United States when she was twelve. She is the editor of Haiti Noir, Haiti Noir 2: The Classics, and the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory (an Oprah's Book Club selection), Krik?Krak! (a National Book Award finalist), The Farming of Bones (an American Book Award winner), and the novel-in-stories The Dew Breaker. She has also written several young adult novels, children's picture books, and a travel narrative, After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel. Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2007 winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is a 2009 recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant. Watch Out for Falling Iguanas is her latest children's picture book.

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Haiti Noir

By Edwidge Danticat

Akashic Books

Copyright © 2011 Akashic Books
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-936070-65-7

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Page, 
Introduction, 
PART I: WHICH NOIR?, 
PATRICK SYLVAIN Odette Christ-Roi, 
M.J. Fievre The Rainbow's End Kenscoff, 
Gary Victor The Finger Port-au-Prince, 
Kettly Mars Paradise Inn Gokal, 
Evelyne Trouillot Which One? Lalue, 
Madison Smartt Bell Twenty Dollars Morne du Cap, 
PART II: NOIR CROSSROADS, 
Edwidge Danticat Claire of the Sea Light Ville Rose, 
Ibi Aanuzoboi The Harem Delmas, 
Josaphat-Robert Large Rosanna Pacot, 
Marie Lilycerat Maloulou Martissant, 
Louis-Philippe Dalembert Dangerous Crossroads Pétionville, 
Marvin Victor Blues for Irène Carrefour-Feuilles, 
PART III: WHO IS THAT NOIR?, 
Katia D. Ulysse The Last Department Puits Blain, 
Nadine Pinede Departure Lounge Cap Haitien, 
Yanick Lahens Who Is that Man? Saint-Marc, 
Marie Ketsia Theodore-Pharel Mercy at the Gate Croix-des-Bouquets, 
Mark Kurlansky The Leopard of Ti Morne Gonaïves, 
Rodney Saint-Éloi The Blue Hill Ozanana, 
About the Contributors, 

CHAPTER 1

ODETTE BY Patrick Sylvain Christ-Roi

The hum quickly gave in to the sound of a hundred tumbling oil drums. Then a morbid absence of sound. Odette lay there watching the shards and splattered chunks of grapefruit marmalade dotting the white linoleum floor of her house. A few seconds seemed like an eternity. There was no other way to say it. Could time even be measured anymore, in this new silent and fractured world?

When the crash came, her five-year-old granddaughter Rose watched her with an extraordinary intensity. It was as if at that very moment the child had inherited the gift that the women in her family had been known to have for generations. The gift of double sight. The child's amber eyes narrowed and she let out a loud melodic scream that lasted the entire thirty-five seconds of the shaking. But then, like the rest of the world, she too fell silent.

Her daughter, the child's mother, had the gift as well. But she had turned her back on it, joining a Protestant church that made her believe she was haunted by ghosts. Then, over time, Odette's gift had faded. After her husband died and her daughter left, she no longer felt the desire to tell total strangers to be careful because she knew there was nothing they could do. There was fate and there was destiny. And there was nothing you could do to stop your star from diving from the heavens, if that's what it wanted to do.

As the roar reverted to another prolonged hum, she heard a constant ringing deep in her ears and felt her eyes fill with dust. When she finally heard her granddaughter's voice, it was very far and faint. As the child crawled toward her, she noticed that the girl's bony little body was moving slowly. Odette's mind and eyes faltered between light and dark. For a moment, she couldn't figure out why the child was crawling toward her; nor could she grasp why she started feeling sparks in her spine and lower legs.

By the time the child's soft, warm hands touched her face, and she noticed the girl's tear-filled eyes, a valve seemed to be cutting off power to Odette's brain. The silence and darkness were deepening, becoming shapeless. Then something seemed to stir inside her. Was she in water? Drowning? That's what it felt like. She was drowning while listening to the sound of intermittent clicking. She tried to spit each grain of dust out of her mouth as though it were water, but she could not.

Her body was playing a strange orchestra. She hadn't played classical music in the house since her daughter left to marry someone from that church — extra protection, they had convinced her daughter, against the ghosts. Leaving the child behind was part of that too. Her daughter had dreaded when that day would come for her own daughter, when the earth would seem to shake and she would pass out and wake up with her gifts. Except they had not been gifts to Odette's only child. The entire world's pains had become her own. She could not read or write or even listen to the classical music she loved without intruding voices.

"We were going to the beach," Odette heard herself say. Before the earth began to shake, she and the child were standing in the kitchen eating bread covered with grapefruit marmalade and talking about taking a trip to the beach. They both loved going to the beach, especially since the child's mother had left. Odette's daughter used to love going to the beach too. There at the beach, between swims, they danced to the blasting konpa music of the other beachgoers' boom boxes. The music, like everything else, was in their bodies. But now Odette couldn't dance to it. Instead, waves of silence filled her. Her heart was pounding faster than normal. She wanted to scream but she couldn't. She closed her eyes and felt the child's hand on her face. The child's voice still sounded far away. At moments she thought they were both still standing in the kitchen eating their sweet bread, sobbing. She closed her eyes again and clenched her teeth. Her body felt like it was being pricked by thousands of needles.

Her granddaughter's voice became clear for a second. Then Odette saw what was pinning them both to the floor. A large cement beam the size of two kitchen chairs was on her lap and on the girl's head. Her granddaughter was completely drenched with blood. It was like when they played "monster" and the child covered her entire body with a sheet. Odette wanted to tell the little girl that she loved her. She wanted to laugh and tease her about not being a convincing enough monster, but something stabbed her in her coccyx area and flushed her head once again with darkness. She envisioned herself walking on the beach with both her daughter and granddaughter while eating ripe mangoes. In her ancestral village in the southeast, they raced each other by a stream of red and violet flowers.

"We can't get to the child," she heard a voice say. It finally registered that the voices belonged to some men who were helping to pull her out from underneath the concrete.

"The child is in pieces," she heard another say.

"Continue to be brave," another said. "We're going to get you out."

While those voices were instructing her, the pain spread from the center of her back and rapidly shot up through her entire body. She was still unable to scream.

She would later remember being raised by many hands, then placed on the ground with a small cushion behind her head. When she reopened her eyes, multiple heads were standing in a dark circle over her. A car came: a black shiny 1970 Peugeot pulled by two muscular Andalusian horses. Horses? Where could horses go in a broken city? They would ride over the cobalt-blue ocean of her daughter and granddaughter's favorite beaches and their perfectly spaced coconut and palm trees.

In the tent clinic, she smelled the rubbing alcohol as they poured it on the gashes on her leg, but she felt nothing. Around her, she heard people groaning and screaming, "M ap mouri!" I'm dying! It was as if they were all swimming in a pool of fire.

When she woke up from another bout of sleep, she was in a massive white tent surrounded by doctors speaking to each other in Spanish. She remembered the bright smile of one young girl — like her Rose, she couldn't have been more than five years old — as she lifted her stumped left arm.

"Alone. Dementia,"...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Akashic Books,U.S.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1936070650
• ISBN 13: 9781936070657
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 300
• Herausgeber: Danticat Edwidge
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar