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One in the Crown
Journeys series
Author: Edwidge Danticat |
In After the Dance, one of
Haiti’s most renowned daughters
returns to her homeland, taking readers
on a stunning, exquisitely rendered
journey beyond the hedonistic surface
of Carnival and into its deep heart.
Danticat had long been scared off from
Carnival by a loved one, who spun tales
of people dislocating hips from gyrating
with too much abandon, losing their
voices from singing too loudly, going
deaf from the clamor of immense speakers,
and being punched, stabbed, pummeled,
or fondled by other lustful revelers.
Now an adult, she resolves to return
and exorcise her Carnival demons. She
spends the week before Carnival in the
area around Jacmel, exploring the rolling
hills and lush forests and meeting the
people who live and die in them. During
her journeys she traces the heroic and
tragic history of the island, from French
colonists and Haitian revolutionaries
to American invaders and home-grown
dictators. Danticat also introduces
us to many of the performers, artists,
and organizers who re-create the myths
and legends that bring the Carnival
festivities to life. When Carnival arrives,
we watch as she goes from observer to
participant and finally loses herself
in the overwhelming embrace of the crowd.
Part travelogue, part memoir, this
is a lyrical narrative of a writer rediscovering
her country along with a part of herself.
It’s also a wonderful introduction
to Haiti’s southern coast and
to the true beauty of Carnival.
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From Publishers Weekly
Twenty years after emigrating to
America, Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory)
returns to her native Haiti and the
coastal village of Jacmel to take
part in her first Carnival. But she's
not without reservations. As a child
she was forbidden to partake in the
festivities by her uncle, a Baptist
minister with whom she lived before
joining her parents in New York at
age 12. "People always hurt themselves
during carnival, he said, and it was
their fault, for gyrating with so
much abandon that they would dislocate
their hips and shoulders and lose
their voices while singing too loudly."
Organized in sections that parallel
Danticat's perambulations in the week
leading up to the event, the author
illuminates the political, economic
and cultural history of the island
nation, introducing Columbus, French
colonists and Francois "Papa
Doc" Duvalier, the dictator of
Danticat's youth.
Throughout, readers meet local artists,
farmers and activists who call Jacmel
home, including Ovid, a farmer whom
Danticat meets having lost her way
in an abandoned sugar plantation.
Madame Ovid, his wife, crafts paper
cones to hold the grilled corn flour
she will sell during carnival.
It's said that the act of writing
leads to a deeper understanding of
one's subject, and oneself. As the
work reveals in its final pages, for
no one is this more true than Danticat,
who offers an enlightening look at
the country and Carnival through the
eyes of one of its finest writers.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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$16.95 (hardcover)
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