Dear Friends,

Welcome.  Some seven months after the earthquake of January 12, 2010, our losses of life, property, patrimony continue to be unfathomable.  Even with the outpouring from individuals far and wide for earthquake relief aid, individuals on the ground are faring no better, on the whole, than they were in the weeks after the earthquake hit.  Many of the dead have not been recovered; others are missing; upwards of a million are living in make-shift tent cities without proper shelter, potable water, or avenues for the future.  Still, various grassroots groups are fighting for the present and future of Haitian lives, groups such as Atis Fanm Matenwa in LaGonav, Kofaviv in Port-au-Prince, The National Congress of Papaye Peasant Movement (MPNKP ), and many others.  For Haiti Networking, please join me on facebook; thank you to all those of you who have supported and continue to support the rebuilding efforts of Haitians on the ground with every thought for viable futures.  As Michaelle Jean, Haitian-born Governor General of Canada, stated in a press conference in mid-January, let us remember Haitian history, our strength, our courage; let us act in the interest of those who call Haiti home in the everyday: “it is time for us to show our solidarity with the most vulnerable people in the Americas, our brothers and sisters in Haiti, whose courage is once again being so harshly tested.”

Kenbe.  Pa lage.

Myriam J. A. Chancy

“Where love is, there is transformation. Without love, revolution has no meaning, for then revolution is merely destruction, decay, a greater and greater ever-mounting misery. Where there is love, there is revolution, because love is transformation from moment to moment.”  – Krishnamurti, The First & Last Freedoms

** PLEASE note that the author’s receipts from novels, The Loneliness of Angels [2010] & The Scorpion’s Claw [2005] will go to Haiti relief through January 2012.**

Read Chapter Excerpts from The Scorpion’s Claw Here.

“Anthems, songs to angels, a character’s obsession with Chopin — music provides spaces of reprieve within the painful memories captured by this novel….[Ruth]’s a fascinating figure and she kicks off the novel in a gripping first sentence — ‘Ruth smoothes the plastic covering her memory table as if she is trying to undo wrinkles in time’….The character Rose is even more compelling…a mysterious woman who is either broken and driven to drink by the viciousness of the world around her or who is taken over by Haitian ghosts.  The chapter devoted to her is worth the price of the book.”

– Winnipeg Free Press, 4/7/10

REVIEWS OF SPIRIT OF HAITI

“This accomplished and haunting debut…is a surreal tour de force set in Haiti during the 1990s….The prose is energetic and filled with poignancy so deeply felt, it resonates long after the story has been told….lyrical and breathtaking….Chancy is a writer who cares about words and pace and tells her story in deft strokes….This sensitive portrait of a people whose spirit might be quashed but not diminished is a compelling read.”
– Irene D’Souza, “Surreal tour de force set in Haiti,” Winnipeg Free Press, March 2005

“Chancy’s [prose] brims with literary devices and rich images that transpose the harsh realities of Duvalier’s terror-based regime against the personal dreams of her individual characters….in Chancy’s world, true meaning resides in the intangible rather than in material reality.”
– WorldPulse, Winter 2004