Kirjailijakuva

René Philoctète (1932–1995)

Teoksen Massacre River tekijä

8 teosta 48 jäsentä 3 arvostelua

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Tekijän teokset

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Kanoninen nimi
Philoctète, René
Virallinen nimi
Philoctète, René
Syntymäaika
1932-11-16
Kuolinaika
1995-07-17
Sukupuoli
male
Kansalaisuus
Haiti
Syntymäpaikka
Jérémie, Haiti
Kuolinpaikka
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Ammatit
poet
novelist
journalist

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

Novela espiralista sobre la masacre de 1937 en la frontera domínico-haitiana. De una prosa poética con pasajes muy bien logrados.
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
arturovictoriano | Mar 14, 2024 |
The review below mine led me to buy this novel, and there is little I can add to it, so I'll just give a few of my impressions of it.

Mainly what struck me is the combination of poetic language with horrific atrocity. In 1937, the dictator of the Dominican Republic, Trujillo, set his soldiers to massacre the Haitians living in the country, especially those along the long border (Haiti is the smaller, western part of Hispaniola; the DR is the larger, eastern section). (Haiti is also much poorer than the Dominican Republic, so Haitians go there in search of largely menial work, then as now.) Trujillo was largely motivated by racism, given his belief that Haitians are blacker than Dominicans) and he was obsessed, as Philoctète describes, with a passion for whiteness. The story focuses on a husband and wife, he a Dominican, she a Haitian, living in a Dominican border town, and the reader learns of their meeting and falling in love and their continuing (and erotic) love for each other.

The story opens with a mysterious black bird of prey continuously circling over the border town, as rumors of the massacre to come also circulate. Pedro, the husband, sets off early in the morning for his job in a sugar factory, but is disturbed by the soldiers he sees along the way and takes a bus/taxi (with a mind of its own, literally) seemingly on an endless journey home. (Magical realism plays a big role in this novel.) Radio broadcasts on the bus detail the number of Haitians killed in various towns -- they are killed by machetes cutting their heads off. What Pedro finds when he finally gets back is that the heads have lives of their own, including that of his wife, Adèle, and are going around the border town talking and trying to reunite with their bodies. Another aspect of this novel is that soldiers test whether someone is Haitian or Dominican by having them try to say the Spanish word for parsley, perejil, which Haitians mangle; the book is filled with Dominicans trying to teach Haitians how to say the word correctly because the people in the border area get along with each other. In fact, Philoctète called his novel Le peuple des terres mêlées or "The people of the mixed lands;" in her note on the translation, the translator explains that she felt the title worked in French but not in English and she called the book after the river that partly separates Haiti from the Dominican Republic.

What I will remember most from this novel is Philoctète's poetic language and his love of listing things, as if the sheer reality of trees, market goods, or people could overcome the horror.
… (lisätietoja)
2 ääni
Merkitty asiattomaksi
rebeccanyc | 1 muu arvostelu | Feb 21, 2016 |
"What isn't possible when power turns stupid?"

We people from over here and over there—we are, in the end, the people of a single land.

The Caribbean island of Hispaniola is shared by two countries, Haiti to the west and the much larger Dominican Republic to the east. The two nations are separated by a latitudinal border, part of which is formed by the Dajabon River, which is also known as Massacre River. Haiti is populated primarily by its African descendants, and it is the poorest country in the Caribbean and the Americas; the Dominican Republic contains a much richer mixture of people from Spain and other European countries, East and West Asia, and other Caribbean countries, including Haiti, and it has the second largest economy in the Caribbean.

Both countries have longstanding histories of colonization and subjugation by Western powers, violent civil wars, oppressive dictators, and bloody border battles. Because of the long porous border and the marked difference in the economies and standards of living of the two nations, Haitians have for years crossed over to the Dominican Republic to find work and better lives for themselves, and particularly in the border towns they often established friendship and not infrequently found love with their Dominican neighbors.

In 1930 the notorious dictator General Rafael Trujillo was "elected" president of the Dominican Republic, after a violent campaign in which many of his opponents were eliminated. Trujillo held great admiration for Adolf Hitler, particularly his views on racial purity, and later in that decade he declared the Dominican Republic was a country of white people, in stark contrast to its black neighbors to the west but also in opposition to his country's mixed race majority. The blancos de la tierra (whites of the land) were revered and rewarded, whereas darker skinned Dominicans were reviled and punished.

As part of this effort, Trujillo embarked on a campaign to rid the country of as many Haitians as possible, supposedly to prevent them from robbing their Dominican neighbors, but in actuality to achieve greater racial purity. He focused this effort on the border between the two nations, especially the region adjacent to Massacre River, and in a six day campaign of terror in October 1937 tens of thousands of Haitians were brutally murdered by soldiers in the Dominican Army. This act of genocide became known as the Parsley Massacre, as Dominican soldiers would show dark skinned residents of the border towns a sprig of parsley, and ask them to say the word for it in Spanish, perejil. The Creole speaking Haitians often could not pronounce the word properly, and those who failed to do so were beheaded with machetes on the spot, or taken to fields where they were executed by firing squads.

Massacre River is a novel about the Parsley Massacre, which is centered around a young couple who are deeply in love with each other, the Dominican Pedro Brito and his beautiful Haitian wife Adèle, who live close to the river. A premonition of the massacre comes in the form of an ominous large raptor, which swoops over and shadows the town and its residents. As the townspeople become aware of Trujillo's plans, Adèle becomes fearful for her own safety. Pedro attempts to comfort her and allieviate her concerns, and leaves her at home to go to work on the fateful day that soldiers enter the town. As word comes in on the radio of the massacre that is taking place, with the death toll in each town enthusiastically announced by broadcasters, Pedro rushes to get back home to find out what has happened to Adèle. When he returns he and other workers are met with a surreal and horrific scene, as the heads of the massacre's victims bounce around the bloodied town, giving voice to the day's events and demanding justice for the atrocities inflicted upon them by singing machetes swung by men loyal to Trujillo, "the Lord of demented death".

Massacre River is a superb story, which uses magical realism to both blunt the gruesome details and highlight the profound effects of the Parsley Massacre on Haitians and their Dominican neighbors. It is also a touching love story and, oddly enough, it contains an element of humor, which would seem to be inappropriate in the face of genocide but actually permits a view of the humanity of the Haitian and Dominican people and their respect and love for each other, which is unaffected by this tragedy. René Philoctète was one of the most revered authors in Haiti, but to date this is the only novel of his that has been translated into English, and he is not well known outside of the Caribbean. I enjoyed this unique and entertaining novel, and I hope that more of his work will be available in the near future.
… (lisätietoja)
5 ääni
Merkitty asiattomaksi
kidzdoc | 1 muu arvostelu | Aug 21, 2013 |

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Associated Authors

Lyonel Trouillot Introduction
Linda Coverdale Translator

Tilastot

Teokset
8
Jäseniä
48
Suosituimmuussija
#325,720
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.6
Kirja-arvosteluja
3
ISBN:t
4
Kielet
1