Rec Request: Haiti, Hispaniola

[sanguinity]

I am seeing much commentary on the ahistoricity of the news coverage of Haiti, especially with respect to U.S. imperialism, Haiti's legacies to the rest of the Americas, and the interlinked histories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic (no link; that's mostly me yelling at Robertson on the TV).

Through all this discussion of what isn't being talked about, most of the book-recs I've seen have been for white U.S. academics. I am very much feeling the lack of recs for POC authors. After several hours search this morning, I've been able to come up with:

• Edwidge Danticat, novels and memoirs (in-comm posts here)
  
• The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora (edited by Danticat)
  
• Jean-Bertrand Aristide
  • Aristide: An Autobiography (1993)
    
  • Dignity (1996; memoir of his three years in exile after the 1991 coup)
    
  • Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization (2000)
• Jean-Robert Cadet, Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle Class American
  

Can anyone chip in and make some more recs? I myself am preferentially looking for English-language histories, but please recommend fic or nonfic, in French or English, especially if the book is by Haitians themselves.

Comments

[livrelibre.livejournal.com]

Mostly for fiction and poetry, there's René Depestre (info in French at http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ile.en.ile/paroles/depestre.html as well as a whole lot of Haitian authors, including nonfiction writers, listed at http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ile.en.ile/haiti/paroles.html). I haven't read any nonfiction by Haitian authors but I'll poke around.

[livrelibre.livejournal.com]

I forgot Michel-Rolph Trouillot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel-Rolph_Trouillot), who wrote Haiti: State against Nation. The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism. I haven't read it but I keep meaning to read his more general work on history, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History.

Also, Google Books tossed up limited previews of Revolutionary freedoms : a history of survival, strength and imagination in Haiti (http://books.google.com/books?id=O-p7qRKl_G0C&lpg=PP1&ots=5e02xhWv0P&dq=Revolutionary%20freedoms%20%3A%20a%20history%20of%20survival%2C%20strength%20and%20imagination%20in%20Haiti&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false) and The History of Haiti,/a>, whose authors may be Haitian. Amazon reviews on the latter indicated sketchy editing.

And there's the Haitian Book Centre (http://www.haitianbookcentre.com/en/index.php), which has history books (and much more) by Haitian authors in multiple languages. Plus they are donating $2 of every sale to earthquake relief. (http://books.google.com/books?id=QUw_Pmcvyw8C&lpg=PP1&dq=haiti%20history&lr=&client=firefox-a&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

[livrelibre.livejournal.com]

'Scuse my HTML-I can't edit. Never type onehanded while eating pizza. The links should work though.