Oxfam is the largest retailer of second-hand books in Europe, and we couldn’t do it without dedicated volunteers. One of them is Andy Barnes, who recently set himself the ambitious goal of reading at least one book from every country in the world. Here he gives us a very different perspective on quake-stricken Haiti.
One of the nice things about my global reading challenge is that it often causes me to look at a particular country in a new way. Some places tend to be presented very one-dimensionally in the media and Haiti is a prime example. Even before the recent disaster, the word “Haiti” always seems to be followed by, “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”, as if this was its official title. Unfortunately, you can now add “disaster zone” to that stock phrase. But my reading has introduced me to a very different Haiti.
I added the Caribbean island to my reading list a couple of years ago (it was country number 112, for anyone keeping score). It was part of an online book group where we invited readers to find anything they could by Haitian writers. This proved a very rewarding experience and we unearthed some really interesting fiction.
I read Masters of the Dew by Jacques Roumain. Roumain was a socialist who violently opposed colonial influence in Haiti and wanted to create a new nationalism that was based on the African roots of its people, as opposed to the French origins of their former owners. Written in 1944, Masters of the Dew is a socialist-realist novel that follows the story of Manuel, who is returning to his Haitian village after years in Cuba, to find it poor, starving and feuding. He tries to unite the village to build a canal so that it can farm prosperously and harmoniously once more but finds that old hatreds, religious beliefs and scheming landlords block his path.
The story was Roumain’s way of showing his fellow Haitians how religious and ethnic rivalries can be exploited to create divisions between people and keep them living in poverty. Despite being slightly heavy-handed in its political preaching, it was a book I really enjoyed. I found out a lot about how African influences have affected Haitian culture, religion and language.
Other readers in the group read books by writers such as Jacques Stephen Alexis, Paulette Poujol Oriol and Lilas Desquiron, all of which are currently out of print but can still be found with a little persistence. The most popular writer was Edwidge Danticat, an American-Haitian who writes about the expat experience and important moments in Haitian history. I know we have had some of her books pass through the Oxfam shop and she is still writing. They are well worth keeping an eye out for.
The Haiti these writers introduced me to was a much deeper, richer and varied place than the simple stereotype we sometimes see on TV. The search for identity seemed to be a recurring theme, which is understandable given Haiti’s beginnings as a former slave colony that successfully rebelled against its masters, its distinctly Creole culture and religion (combined with European and American influences) and its often violent history. The country’s past is punctuated with shocking events, such as a massacre of up to 30,000 Haitians in the Dominican Republic and the reintroduction of a form of slavery in the early 20th Century. Perhaps this history of turmoil and disaster explains why Haiti has produced so many good writers.
My global challenge has given me a new perspective on many places that only appear in our media in times of crisis. Haiti may still be “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere” and it is undeniably a disaster zone at the moment but it is good to remember that it is also a vibrant country with a long history and fascinating culture, whose citizens are capable of producing some wonderful literature. Check out some of the writers I’ve mentioned and you’ll see what I mean.
Find out more about Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake response