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Shows how foundational practices of mourning are to Haitian literary tradition.
Attending to the Dead examines how Haitian writers memorialize loss, whether of a prominent historical figure, a compatriot, a literary forebear, or a dear loved one. The first full-length study of mourning in Haitian literature, the book offers close, contextually grounded readings of a vast body of work—from Alfred Nemours's Histoire de la captivité et de la mort de Toussaint Louverture to Massillon Coicou's poetry and Marie Chauvet's celebrated triptych Amour, colère et folie, to the many literary afterlives of novelist Jacques Stephen Alexis and Radio Haiti founder Jean Léopold Dominique. Building on methods in Haitian Studies to mobilize culturally rooted concepts and epistemologies, or konesans, Nathan H. Dize identifies and explores an array of literary practices of mourning. These include the strengthening of literary kinship through allusions and reading strategies, the reissuance of out-of-print editions, and the gathering of aesthetic references, memories, and sentiments of loss that link Haitian literary culture to broader African diasporic and Caribbean cultural, literary, and religious histories.
"Attending to the Dead provides an essential perspective on how Haitians remember and pay homage to the deceased, especially those who have helped to shape visions for a better future for Haiti, from the struggle for national independence to the twenty-first century. Dize theorizes these acts of literary care through insightfully crafted analyses that model respect for Haitian literature and are rooted in a deep and broad knowledge of Haitian culture." — Lucy Swanson, author of The Zombie in Contemporary French Caribbean Fiction
Nathan H. Dize is Assistant Professor of French and African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the translator of five books, including The Immortals, by Makenzy Orcel, also published by SUNY Press.
INTRODUCTION: Haitian Literature and the Practice of Mourning
Literary Burials: The Mourning Spirit of Haitian Literature
Death and Mourning in the Haitian Literary Archive
1: Mourning Toussaint in Alfred Nemours's Histoire de la captivité et de la mort de Toussaint Louverture
Searching for Toussaint Louverture in France
A Walk through the Remains of History
Recovering Haiti's "Glorious Relics"
2: Remembering Massillon Coicou: Marie Chauvet's Transgressive Mourning Under Dictatorship
Poésies nationales and Jean-Jacques Dessalines in Massillon Coicou's Literary Legacy
Marie Chauvet, Massillon Coicou, and the Violence of Dictators
Remembering Literary Lives, Moving Beyond Literary Drama
3: Gathering Jacques Stephen Alexis's Literary Debris and the Aesthetic Afterlives of L'espace d'un cillement
The Aesthetic Legacies of L'espace d'un cillement
Defending the Dead, Reviving Alexis's Books
The Traces of Jacques Stephen Alexis's Aesthetic Legacy
Jacques Stephen Alexis and the Future of Haitian Fiction
4: Jean Do and I: Haitian Self-Writing and the Literary Afterlives of Jean Dominique
Toujou Guapa! Thinking Dyaspora with Jean Dominique in The Butterfly's Way
Assembling Memories with Jean Dominique in Mémoire errante
Self-Writing and Aesthetic Aliveness, or Dreaming with Three Men Named Jean
After Jean Dominique
CONCLUSION - Repozwa, Resting Places