Haiti Noir

August 29, 2011
Michael Stipe, REM frontman and rock star legend in his own right, becomes a self-declared “dork nerd” when talking about Patti Smith. “I first met Patti Smith in the autumn of 1975.... Somebody had left a music magazine, Cream, under the desk there was a haunting photograph of a young Patti Smith, leaning against a wall, staring down the camera, all scary and beautiful.” In Stipe’s startling photographs and 12 brief written homages, Patti Smith is depicted as a down-to-earth goddess, a part of and apart from her evolving entourage of musicians, artists, poets (Allen Ginsberg makes an appearance), and friends. This isn’t a traditional book of portraits—the images are eerie, smudged, and only a few are of Patti Smith herself. The subjects are rarely identified; there are no captions, and the book has no page numbers. A disproportionate number of the photographs are set in bathrooms. The overwhelming mood is one of disjunction, claustrophobia, exhaustion, temporariness—and the effect is raw and intimate. The photo of Stipe braiding Smith’s hair is representative: she giggles shyly, looking years younger than her chronological age. And he is no longer the “dork nerd” teenager, but a fellow musician—and from his proud, caring mien, even a protector.

November 1, 2010

The latest in the "Akashic Noir" series presents new stories by editor Danticat, as well as by Haitian and non-Haitian authors such as Evelyne Trouillot and Mark Kurlansky.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 22, 2010
As Danticat (Brother, I'm Dying) points out in her excellent introduction to this solid entry in Akashic's acclaimed noir series, most of its 18 stories were written before the devastating earthquake of January 2010. This natural tragedy lends a strong undercurrent to the fictional takes on a country that was already ravaged by the terrible human problems of poverty, violent crime, and political corruption. Powerful genre-benders include Katia D. Ulysse's "The Last Department," a stylish, Poe-inspired story about the mutual enmity of two daughters, one who "made it" in America and the other who stayed behind; and Yanick Lahens's "Who Is That Man?" in which an innocent man gets caught in the middle of drug cartel business. Other standouts are Patrick Sylvain's "Odette" and Kettly Mars's "Paradise Inn." Many selections aren't especially noir, at least not in the way that most crime fiction readers would recognize, but Danticat has succeeded in assembling a group portrait of Haitian culture and resilience that is cause for celebration.

December 15, 2010
Eighteen authors who either live in Haiti or have connections to the country contribute stories of greed, love, lust, murder, and other traditional noir themes. Along with many others unfamiliar to North American readers, there are a couple of surprises, including Mark Kurlansky, an American writer known for nonfiction but who, as a newspaper reporter, covered Haiti and the Caribbean for nearly a decade. Most of the stories are written in English, but a couple have been translated from the French. A solid contribution to the series, especially for its showcasing of a setting not commonly portrayed in crime fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2010

Haitians may be among the poorest people in the world, but they are rich in an imaginative spirit that has helped them endure centuries of poverty, political corruption, and natural disasters. "Haitian creativity has always been one of the country's most identifiable survival traits," writes novelist Danticat (The Dew Breaker) in her introduction to the latest entry (with Copenhagen Noir, see above) in Akashic's acclaimed noir series. Reflected in the country's vibrant visual arts and music, this creative genius also finds full expression in the 18 stories contributed by writers in Haiti and in the Haitian diaspora as well as two "blan" (white) Haitiphile authors (Madison Smartt Bell; Mark Kurlansky). A few of the tales are noir in the traditional crime fiction sense--Josaphat-Robert Large's "Rosanna" is a chilling tale of a kidnapping gone very, very wrong: tensions between an emigre sister and her stay-at-home sibling come to a deadly head after their mother's funeral in Katia D. Ulysse's sardonic "The Last Department." Others experiment with stretching the genre's boundaries. Gary Victor's "The Finger" branches into hallucinatory horror, while Kettly Mars's "Paradise Inn" is a study in existential surrealism (shades of Sartre's No Exit). VERDICT This anthology will give American readers a complex and nuanced portrait of the real Haiti not seen on the evening news and introduce them to some original and wonderful writers. [A portion of the profits will be donated to the Lambi Fund of Haiti; see Q&A with Danticat on p. 92.--Ed.]--Wilda Williams, Library Journal

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.