The Haitian writer par excellence.
René Philoctète (1932–1995) was born in Jérémie, Haiti. Inspired by Rimbaud, he published ten poetry collections, four plays, and three novels. In the early 1960s, he founded the Literary Haiti group, and then a few years later was cofounder of spiralism—the most marked movement in Haitian poetry of the 20th century. Philoctete’s work is based in Haitian realism, and his writing still has a political urgency to it, always fighting against violence and dictatorships.
In 1937 the power-mad racist Generalissimo Trujillo ordered the slaughter of thousands and thousands of Haitians—and, as Philoctète puts it, death set up shop everywhere. At the heart of Massacre River is the loving marriage of the Dominican Pedro and the Haitian Adèle in a little town on the Dominican border. On his way to work, Pedro worries that a massacre is in the making; an olive-drab truck packed with armed soldiers rumbles by. And then the church bells begin to ring, and there is the relentless voice on the radio everywhere, urging the slaughter of all the Haitians. Operation Cabezas Haitianas (Haitian Heads) is underway, the soldiers shout, “Perejil! [Parsley!] Perish! Punish!” Haitians try to pronounce “perejil” correctly, but fail, and weep. The town is in an uproar, Adele is ordered to say “perejil” but stammers. And Pedro runs home and searches for his beloved wife, searches and searches… “The characters of this book not only inspired the love and outrage of an extraordinary writer like Philoctète,” writes Edwidge Danticat, “but continue to challenge the meaning of community and humanity in all of us.”
The Haitian writer par excellence.
