RECLAIMING HISTORY: POWER, RESISTANCE & CULTURAL MEMORY – FICTION & NONFICTION
Join us for a conversation about revolutionary figures and marginalized voices. In The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe, Marlene Daut explores a riveting life of a man who was born enslaved and eventually crowned himself King Henry I. This essential biography unravels the enigma of the man who was Haiti’s only sovereign, in a story of geopolitical clashes but also of friendship and loyalty, treachery and betrayal, and heroism and strife in an era of revolutionary upheaval. Enslaved for the first 30 years of his life, Jean‑Jacques Dessalines joined the revolution that abolished slavery in Haiti, became a general of the new French Republic, and after learning that France once again supported slavery, declared war on his former allies. Julia Gaffield’s I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti’s Fight for Freedom humanizes Dessalines and his commitment to liberty and equality. Olive Senior‘s Paradise Once: A Novel speaks to the resiliency of the Indigenous Taíno people of the Caribbean, whose culture was virtually destroyed within two generations after Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” in 1492. In 1513, an entire village in Cuba was wiped out by Spanish forces. But three Tainos and one African runaway escaped the massacre, and an epic spiritual battle ensued. Moderated by Chantalle F. Verna, associate professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University and author of Haiti and the Uses of America: Post U.S.-Occupation Promises.
PRESENTED BY
WITH THE SUPPORT OF MEDIA PARTNERS
Buy The First and Last King of Haiti – Daut
Buy I Have Avenged America – Gaffield
Buy Haiti and the Uses of America: Post U.S.-Occupation Promises – Verna
