CARAF Books – serie

I Am Alive (Je suis vivant) is celebrated Haitian author Kettly Mars’s latest novel, telling the story of a bourgeois Caribbean family as it wrestles with issues of mental illness, unconventional sexuality, and the difficulty of returning home and rediscovery following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Mars, herself a survivor of the disaster, has crafted a complex, at times disorienting, but ultimately enthralling and powerfully evocative work of literature that adds to her reputation as one of the leading voices of the francophone world.When the mental health facility where he has been living for decades is severely damaged, Alexandre Bernier must return home to Fleur-de-Chêne. His sister Marylène has also come home, leaving behind a flourishing career as a painter in Brussels, and begins to explore her sexuality with her artist’s model Norah, who poses for her in secret. These homecomings are both a lift and a burden to the family matriarch, Éliane, a steadfast and resourceful widow. Over the course of the novel, past and present blend together as each character has an opportunity to narrate the story from their own perspective. In the end, it is the resilience of the Haitian people that allows them to navigate the seismic shifts in their family and in the land.

I Am Alive (Je suis vivant) is celebrated Haitian author Kettly Mars’s latest novel, telling the story of a bourgeois Caribbean family as it wrestles with issues of mental illness, unconventional sexuality, and the difficulty of returning home and rediscovery following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Mars, herself a survivor of the disaster, has crafted a complex, at times disorienting, but ultimately enthralling and powerfully evocative work of literature that adds to her reputation as one of the leading voices of the francophone world.When the mental health facility where he has been living for decades is severely damaged, Alexandre Bernier must return home to Fleur-de-Chêne. His sister Marylène has also come home, leaving behind a flourishing career as a painter in Brussels, and begins to explore her sexuality with her artist’s model Norah, who poses for her in secret. These homecomings are both a lift and a burden to the family matriarch, Éliane, a steadfast and resourceful widow. Over the course of the novel, past and present blend together as each character has an opportunity to narrate the story from their own perspective. In the end, it is the resilience of the Haitian people that allows them to navigate the seismic shifts in their family and in the land.

The discovery in Robinson Crusoe of the footprint of a fellow human on an abandoned island is a haunting and iconic moment in world literature. In the hands of Patrick Chamoiseau, one of the most innovative and lauded authors in the French language, this moment of shattered solitude becomes an occasion for Crusoe to reconsider his origins, existence, and humanity and for one of our most acclaimed novelists to craft a powerful meditation on race and history.Chamoiseau’s novel contrasts two intertwining narratives—the log entries of a slave ship’s captain and the story of a castaway who awakens on a beach and must rebuild his entire world alone. Chamoiseau creates a new perspective on the Crusoe myth, not only injecting the slave trade and Creole history into this previously ahistorical tale but conceiving an intensely original, freeform prose influenced by Creole cadence. This powerful work by a literary master is available in English for the first time in this eloquent and vivid translation.

The discovery in Robinson Crusoe of the footprint of a fellow human on an abandoned island is a haunting and iconic moment in world literature. In the hands of Patrick Chamoiseau, one of the most innovative and lauded authors in the French language, this moment of shattered solitude becomes an occasion for Crusoe to reconsider his origins, existence, and humanity and for one of our most acclaimed novelists to craft a powerful meditation on race and history.Chamoiseau’s novel contrasts two intertwining narratives—the log entries of a slave ship’s captain and the story of a castaway who awakens on a beach and must rebuild his entire world alone. Chamoiseau creates a new perspective on the Crusoe myth, not only injecting the slave trade and Creole history into this previously ahistorical tale but conceiving an intensely original, freeform prose influenced by Creole cadence. This powerful work by a literary master is available in English for the first time in this eloquent and vivid translation.

The latest novel by one of Haiti’s most brilliant writersThe most recent book by renowned Haitian novelist, essayist, and poet RenÉ Depestre, Popa Singer is a semi-autobiographical chronicle of Haiti in the late 1950s, the very moment when the country first came under decades of despotic rule.To celebrate her son’s return home after years of exile, Diana Fontoriol (aka “Popa Singer”)—an indomitable mother armed only with her sewing machine and her personal convictions—determines to resist in her own way the infamous Ubu King of the Tropics: FranÇois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. Depestre’s novel tells the story of this at once intimate and epic struggle. Combining colorful fantasy and biting social satire, it is a deeply personal and singularly artistic take on an infamous chapter in Haitian history.

The latest novel by one of Haiti’s most brilliant writersThe most recent book by renowned Haitian novelist, essayist, and poet RenÉ Depestre, Popa Singer is a semi-autobiographical chronicle of Haiti in the late 1950s, the very moment when the country first came under decades of despotic rule.To celebrate her son’s return home after years of exile, Diana Fontoriol (aka “Popa Singer”)—an indomitable mother armed only with her sewing machine and her personal convictions—determines to resist in her own way the infamous Ubu King of the Tropics: FranÇois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. Depestre’s novel tells the story of this at once intimate and epic struggle. Combining colorful fantasy and biting social satire, it is a deeply personal and singularly artistic take on an infamous chapter in Haitian history.

The Last of the African Kings follows the wayward fortunes of a noble African family. It begins with the regal BÉhanzin, an African king who opposed French colonialism and was exiled to distant Martinique. In the course of this brilliant novel, Maryse CondÉ tells of BÉhanzin’s scattered offspring and their lives in the Caribbean and the United States. A book made up of many characters and countless stories, The Last of the African Kings skillfully intertwines the themes of exile, lost origins, memory, and hope. It is set mainly in the Americas, from the Caribbean to modern-day South Carolina, yet Africa hovers always in the background.

The Last of the African Kings follows the wayward fortunes of a noble African family. It begins with the regal BÉhanzin, an African king who opposed French colonialism and was exiled to distant Martinique. In the course of this brilliant novel, Maryse CondÉ tells of BÉhanzin’s scattered offspring and their lives in the Caribbean and the United States. A book made up of many characters and countless stories, The Last of the African Kings skillfully intertwines the themes of exile, lost origins, memory, and hope. It is set mainly in the Americas, from the Caribbean to modern-day South Carolina, yet Africa hovers always in the background.

The newest English translation of one of Haiti’s most powerful literary voicesDÉsirÉe Congo is a riveting, powerful, and profoundly original novel set in the final years of the Haitian Revolution at the dawn of the nineteenth century. In this richly textured work, Trouillot—one of the leading voices of the francophone literary world—constructs an intricate narrative web from the varied experiences of freedmen and women, maroons, enslaved African people and their Creole children, as well as French planters and white smallholders in colonial Saint-Domingue at a historical moment of unthinkable upheaval. It is a moving, lyrical book whose strikingly realized characters enrich our understanding of the last confrontations between the Haitian revolutionaries and Napoleon’s imperial forces—a conflict that resulted in the success of the largest slave revolt in recorded history and the independence of the first Black state in the western hemisphere.

The newest English translation of one of Haiti’s most powerful literary voicesDÉsirÉe Congo is a riveting, powerful, and profoundly original novel set in the final years of the Haitian Revolution at the dawn of the nineteenth century. In this richly textured work, Trouillot—one of the leading voices of the francophone literary world—constructs an intricate narrative web from the varied experiences of freedmen and women, maroons, enslaved African people and their Creole children, as well as French planters and white smallholders in colonial Saint-Domingue at a historical moment of unthinkable upheaval. It is a moving, lyrical book whose strikingly realized characters enrich our understanding of the last confrontations between the Haitian revolutionaries and Napoleon’s imperial forces—a conflict that resulted in the success of the largest slave revolt in recorded history and the independence of the first Black state in the western hemisphere.

A prize-winning novel from one of Algeria’s rising literary starsIn A Waltz, Lynda Chouiten depicts an irreverent and creative woman with an artistic temperament navigating the stiflingly conservative society in which she was raised. The narrative follows the path of Chahira, a seamstress from El Moudja—a fictional small coastal town in the Kabyle region of Algeria—to an international design competition in Vienna. Along the way, A Waltz expresses the strain of competing value systems, regional identities and expectations, and a cacophony of voices bearing down upon one woman while asking challenging questions about the nature of madness, confinement, and resistance to a patriarchal world.

A prize-winning novel from one of Algeria’s rising literary starsIn A Waltz, Lynda Chouiten depicts an irreverent and creative woman with an artistic temperament navigating the stiflingly conservative society in which she was raised. The narrative follows the path of Chahira, a seamstress from El Moudja—a fictional small coastal town in the Kabyle region of Algeria—to an international design competition in Vienna. Along the way, A Waltz expresses the strain of competing value systems, regional identities and expectations, and a cacophony of voices bearing down upon one woman while asking challenging questions about the nature of madness, confinement, and resistance to a patriarchal world.

A collection of works by one of twentieth-century Morocco’s greatest writers Appearing for the first time in English translation, this is the only career-spanning collection of short prose by the fiery, radical Moroccan writer Mohammed KhaÏr-Eddine, beginning with the first story he ever published (which won the Prix de la nouvelle maghrÉbine) and ending with a posthumously published monologue written in the voice of an African head of state worrying about the fragility of the nation his death is about to bereave. Throughout his celebrated career, KhaÏr-Eddine’s work mused on exile, on his use of the French language rather than his native Chleuh, on the colonial pacification of the Moroccan hinterlands, and on his ancestors. Like the young boy he remembers corralling fish in the seasonal streams of southern Morocco, or the unfortunate travelers waylaid by djinns and hyenas, KhaÏr-Eddine finds there is life even in the desert and there is wisdom abounding in the asylum—one need only be patient enough to see it.