Dear Friends,

Welcome and thank you for visiting my pages whether you are doing so because you have read or would like to read one of my novels or academic books, or were led here out of an interest in Haiti and, in particular, Haitian women’s issues.  It has been a year and a half since the earthquake of January 12, 2010, and other disasters, local and global, have taken up much of our time and focus.  I ask that you please not forget those on the ground in Haiti, those suffering and those toiling alongside to make a true and free Haiti for Haitians a reality.  Please continue to support Haiti relief and rebuilding efforts in whatever ways you can, be they spiritual, material or collaborative.  Whether a little or a lot, every effort, every contribution accumulates like the ripples across ponds, and makes a difference in ways both visible and imperceptible.

Thank you for your interest in Haiti.  Thank you for your support of my work.

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 (2005) Here.

REVIEWS OF THE LONELINESS OF ANGELS (2010)

“The Loneliness of Angels reframes migration…as movement that both marks the people and history of the Caribbean and links to something beyond, what [Chancy] has recently called ‘the ability to conceive of a world greater than ourselves and greater than the islands of our origins.’ ….With [this novel] Chancy has exploited and expanded the novel’s form to leave her readers with memorable characters and compelling stories…”

– Sarah Barbour, “The Movement of Migration,” The Caribbean Writer Vol. 25 (Summer 2011)

“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 [revealed] 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…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