The Tonton Macoute or simply the Macoute was a Haitian paramilitary and secret police force created in 1959 by dictator François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Haitians named this force after the Haitian mythological bogeyman, Tonton Macoute, who kidnaps and punishes unruly children by snaring them in a gunny sack before carrying them off to be consumed for breakfast. The Macoute were known for their brutality, terrorism, and assassinations. In 1970, the militia was renamed the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale. Though formally disbanded in 1986, its members continued to terrorize the country.
Dutty Boukman was an early leader of the Haitian Revolution. Born in Senegambia, he was enslaved to Jamaica. He eventually ended up in Haiti, where he became a leader of the Maroons and a vodou houngan (priest).
Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian-American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or edited several books and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. As of the fall of 2023, she will be the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University.
Breath, Eyes, Memory is Edwidge Danticat's acclaimed 1994 novel, and was chosen as an Oprah Book Club Selection in May 1998. The novel deals with questions of racial, linguistic and gender identity in interconnected ways.
The Dew Breaker is a collection of linked stories by Edwidge Danticat, published in 2004. The title come from Haitian Creole name for a torturer during the regimes of François "Papa Doc" and Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
Nathalie Handal is a French-American poet, writer and professor, described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” A New Yorker and a quintessential global citizen, she has published 10 prize-winning books, including Life in a Country Album. She is praised for her “diverse, and innovative body of work.”
Farming of Bones is a work of historical fiction by Edwidge Danticat, published in 1998. It tells the story of an orphaned young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic who gets caught up in the carnage of the Parsley massacre during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo.
Anacaona (1474?–1504), or Golden Flower, was a Taíno cacica, or female cacique (chief), religious expert, poet and composer born in Xaragua. Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, Ayiti or Quisqueya to the Taínos was divided into five kingdoms, i.e., Xaragua, Maguana, Higüey, Maguá, and Marién. Anacaona was born into a family of caciques. She was the sister of Bohechío, the ruler of Xaragua.
Josaphat-Robert Large was a Euro-Haitian-American poet, novelist and art critic. His novel Les terres entourées de larmes [Shore surrounded with tears] won the prestigious Prix littéraire des Caraïbes in 2003. He was nominated for the Haitian grand Literary Prize of 2004, together with Edwidge Danticat, René Depestre, Frankétienne, Gary Klang, Dany Laferrière and Leslie Manigat.
Krik? Krak! (ISBN 0-679-76657-X) is a collection of short stories written by Edwidge Danticat and published in 1996. It consists of nine short stories plus an epilogue. The stories are tied together by similar plots of struggle and survival within the Haitian community. The title of the books is a reference to the Haitian cultural tradition of folk storytelling.
Brother I'm Dying, published in 2007 by Alfred A. Knopf, is a family memoir by novelist Edwidge Danticat. In 2007, the title won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was also nominated for the National Book Award.
Haitian literature has been closely intertwined with the political life of Haiti. Haitian intellectuals turned successively or simultaneously to African traditions, France, Latin America, the UK, and the United States. At the same time, Haitian history has always been a rich source of inspiration for literature, with its heroes, its upheavals, its cruelties and its rites.
Maaza Mengiste is an Ethiopian-American writer. Her novels include Beneath the Lion's Gaze (2010) and The Shadow King (2019), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.
Claire of the Sea Light is a novel by Edwidge Danticat that was published in August 2013 by Knopf. Set in the island-town of Ville Rose, Haiti, it narrates the story of the disappearance of a seven-year-old girl, Claire Limyè Lanmè Faustin, and of the memories of an entire townspeople that are brought to life in the wake of her disappearance. In the words of Guardian reviewer Kamila Shamsie, "Danticat shows us a town scarred by violence, corruption, class disparities and social taboo, which is also a town of hope, dreams, love and sensuality. But these are enmeshed rather than opposing elements. Love leads to violence, dreams lead to corruption."
Myriam J. A. Chancy is a Haitian-Canadian-American writer and a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. As of 2008, she is the Hartley Burr Alexander Chair of Humanities at Scripps College of the Claremont Consortium. As a writer, she focuses on Haitian culture, gender, class, sexuality, and Caribbean women's studies. Her novels have won several awards, including the Guyana Prize in Literature Caribbean Award.
Évelyne Trouillot is a Haitian author, writing in French and Creole.
Patricia Benoit is a Haitian-American filmmaker. In 2012, she was critically acclaimed for her directorial venture on Stones in the Sun which was later screened at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival where she won "Best New Narrative Director".
Wayétu Moore is a Liberian-American author and social entrepreneur. Her debut novel, She Would Be King, was published by Graywolf Press in September 2018, and was named a best book of 2018 by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Entertainment Weekly & BuzzFeed. The novel was positively reviewed by Time Magazine, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Moore has published work in The New York Times, The Paris Review, Guernica Magazine, The Atlantic, and other journals. She was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship for fiction in 2019. Moore's memoir, The Dragons, The Giant, The Women, was named a 2020 New York Times Notable Book, a Time Magazine 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020, and a Publishers Weekly Top 5 Nonfiction Books of 2020. In 2011, Moore founded a publishing house and nonprofit organization, One Moore Book, which publishes and distributes books intended for children in countries underrepresented in literature.
Ibi Aanu Zoboi is a Haitian-American author of young adult fiction. She is best known for her young adult novel American Street, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young Adult's Literature in 2017.
Hadriana in All My Dreams is a 1988 magical realism novel by Haitian author René Depestre. It is considered a major work of 20th century Haitian literature, and possibly Depestre's most successful work.
