Marilène Phipps held fellowships at the Guggenheim Foundation, and at Harvard’s Bunting Institute, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, and the Center for the Study of World Religions. Her collection, The Company of Heaven: Stories from Haiti, won the Iowa Short Fiction Award. Her collection, Crossroads and Unholy Water won the Crab Orchard Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in many publications such as The Best American Short Stories, Haiti Noir: The Classics, The Beacon Best, Ploughshares, River Styx, Callaloo, and Harvard Divinity Bulletin. She is the author of Unseen Worlds: Adventures at the Crossroads of Vodou Spirits and Latter-day Saints (Calumet Editions). The extraordinary life of Marilène Phipps began in Haiti — the magical island of African Vodou gods, and the world’s first black republic — the singular cultural context and exotic milieu of the Caribbean, where hell and paradise can transfix us daily. In this powerful memoir, we enter the lives of a family who are both descendants of European aristocrats and African slaves. We relive her experiences with Vodou priests and spirits, a cold-eyed pope, a charismatic Muslim astrologer, Catholic monks and exorcists, American Mormon bishops, scholars and missionaries. Through it all, we are stirred by the antithetical feel of entitlement and destitution, barbarism and lyricism, infinity and insanity.
Marilène Phipps resevwa yon pri ekselans nan men NAACP poutèt angajman eksepsyonèl li pran anvè avansman kilti ak kòz kominote koulè yo. Li te travay nan Guggenheim Foundation, nan Harvard’s Bunting Institute, nan W.E.B. Du Bois Institute ak nan Center for the Study of World Religions. Koleksyon li an, The Company of Heaven: Stories from Haiti, te genyen pri Fiksyon Kout Iowa a. Powèm li yo te genyen pri pwezi Grolier 1993 la, epi koleksyon li an, Crossroads and Unholy Water, te genyen Pri Pwezi Crab Orchard la. Li te kontribye nan antoloji tankou paregzanp The Best American Short Stories ak Haiti Noir: The Classics. Sit wèb li a se www.marilenephipps.com