The Haitian Flight for Freedom in Maryse Condé’s Rêves amers and Marie-Célie Agnant’s Alexis d’Haïti

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2018

Abstract

This article analyzes how Maryse Condé and Marie-Célie Agnant portray the struggles faced by Haitian “boat people” in their novels Rêves amers and Alexis d’Haïti which feature child protagonists forced to leave their homeland in search of a better life in the United States. As children and migrants, they are often forgotten and misrepresented in official histories. I argue that by restoring the voices of the most vulnerable, Condé and Agnant rectify what Michel-Rolph Trouillot labels the “silencing of the past”1 of Haitian history.

Publication Title

Contemporary French and Francophone Studies

Volume

22

Issue

5

First Page

553

Last Page

561

DOI of Published Version

10.1080/17409292.2018.1580470

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