Book list for Zoe: At the end of the last Spring Quarter at UC, a student asked me for a list of books that had influenced me. I wondered what to list since I’ve always read voraciously in areas that confound categorization, but mostly in fiction, winning a reading contest in the 6th grade by [...]
YOUR HELP IS STILL NEEDED PLEASE MAKE A DONATION to a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund TODAY: Grassroots Organizations (Haitian or collaborative North/South Ventures): Institute for Policy Study/Other Worlds (IPS/Other Worlds) works collaboratively with Haitian Peasant & women’s groups (such as KOFAVIV) to assure Haitians with just alternatives for their futures; funds can be designated for [...]
The following is a list of “must read” books on Haiti for initiates (in English or English Translation): Haitian Goods At Market, Punda-Curaçao (photo MJA Chancy © 2011) Literature : Alejo Carpentier, Kingdom of This World Graham Greene, The Comedians Marie Chauvet, Anger, Love, Madness René Depestre, Festival of the Greasy Pole Jacques Stephen Alexis, [...]
Under/Water For the departed For Haïti And in reference to Asako Narahashi’s ‘half wake and half asleep in the water’ (photograph) 2001 …under water, sinking, eyes closed, listening to the voices the sea, hopeful not to drown remembering, arms wide, mantra: the body is but water and salt …will float up …sooner or later …deep [...]
Presentation for Human Rights Project, Bard College, “Beyond Silence: Meaning & Memory in the Noise of Haiti’s Present” (March 12, 2010) “Hearing Our Mothers: Safeguarding Haitian Women’s Self-Representation & Practices of Survival.”[1] by Dr. Myriam J. A. Chancy, Professor of English, University of Cincinnati (Please do not quote without permission or proper attribution) Revolution is [...]
Hope in Collectivity: The Women Artists of Matenwa, La Gonâve, Haïti The following piece was written before the 2005 elections and post the devastations of the 2004 hurricane season. At present, the Atis Fanm Matenwa Collective is more or less stranded in the interior of l’Ile de la Gonave and seeking to rebuild their community [...]
These photos were taken by Phillippe Qualo in Haiti shortly after the earthquake. As the body count increases, some with the names of loved ones, others without names, and as places that once held the meaning of one’s first days and existence appear in photos as evidence of their disappearance, it becomes increasingly difficult to fathom the immensity of our collective and individual losses, for those who are Haitian, for those of us born in Haiti. It is one thing to leave a country behind out of necessity, political or economic, quite another to lose to natural and man-made disasters, traces of one’s existence. Words are insufficient to mark what cannot be recovered, lamented, properly buried with dignity. MC
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED PLEASE MAKE A DONATION to a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund TODAY : Wyclef Jean’s YELE earthquake relief fund online (Small donations of $5 can also be made by texting YELE to 501501) International Child Care works in Haiti & the Dominican Republic Doctors without Borders Partners In Health / Location Boston, [...]