WHY HAITI NEEDS NEW NARRATIVES
Petit-Goâve, Haiti, © 2010 Gina Athena Ulysse.
WHY
HAITI
NEEDS NEW
NARRATIVES
A Post-Quake Chronicle
GINA ATHENA ULYSSE
Foreword by ROBIN D. G. KELLEY
Translated by NADÈVE MÉNARD & ÉVELYNE TROUILLOT
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Middletown, Connecticut
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Middletown CT 06459
© 2015 Gina Athena Ulysse;
foreword © 2015 Robin D. G. Kelley;
Kreyòl and French translations © 2015
Nadève Ménard and Évelyne Trouillot.
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Richard Hendel
Typeset in Utopia, Sentinel, and LeHavre by
Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative.
The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ulysse, Gina Athena.
Why Haiti needs new narratives : a post-quake chronicle / Gina Athena Ulysse; foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley; translated by Nadève Ménard and Évelyne Trouillot.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8195-7544-9 (cloth: alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8195-7545-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8195-7546-3 (ebook)
1. Haiti Earthquake, Haiti, 2010. 2. Haiti—Social conditions—21st century. 3. Haiti—Economic conditions—21st century. 4. Haiti—Politics and government—21st century. I. Title.
HV600. H2U48 2015
972.9407′3—dc23
2014048352
5 4 3 2 1
Typographic illustration on front cover by Gina Athena Ulysse and Lucy Guiliano.
For
Francesca, Jean-Max, Stanley
and their peers on both sides of
the water who are Haiti’s future
Tout moun se moun, men tout moun pa menm.
All people are human, but all humans are not the same.
—Haitian proverb
VOLUME CONTENTS
WHY HAITI NEEDS NEW NARRATIVES (in English), 1
SA K FÈ AYITI BEZWEN ISTWA TOU NÈF (an kreyòl), 113
POURQUOI HAÏTI A BESOIN DE NOUVEAUX DISCOURS (en français), 251
CONTENTS
Foreword Robin D. G. Kelley, xiii
Introduction: Negotiating My Haiti(s), xvii
PART I: RESPONDING TO THE CALL
1 Avatar, Voodoo, and White Spiritual Redemption, 3
2 Amid the Rubble and Ruin, Our Duty to Haiti Remains, 5
3 Haiti Will Never Be the Same, 7
4 Dehumanization and Fracture: Trauma at Home and Abroad, 9
5 Haiti’s Future: A Requiem for the Dying, 12
6 Not-So-Random Thoughts on Words, Art, and Creativity, 14
7 Sisters of the Cowries, Struggles, and Haiti’s Future, 19
