Create Dangerously (20 page)

The poem “Tourist” by Felix Morisseau-Leroy was translated from Haitian Creole by Jack Hirschman and is published widely on the Internet as well as in
Haitiad and Oddities
, edited by Jeffrey Knapp (Austin: University of Texas, 1991). The Junot Díaz quotation is from his essay “Becoming a Writer,” published in
O: The Oprah Magazine
, November 2009. Selden Rodman and Carole Cleaver tell a version of the story about Gran Brigit and the cemetery tree in their book
Spirits of the Night: The Vaudun Gods of Haiti
(Dallas: Spring Publications, 1992). The Susan Sontag quotations are from Susan Sontag,
On Photography
(New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1973). The Roland Barthes quotations are from Roland Barthes,
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1973). Jane Regan and Daniel Morel’s book on the Septentrional has not yet been published. The quotations are from
a manuscript in progress. Albert Camus’ short story “The Artist at Work” is reprinted in Albert Camus,
The Plague, the Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays
(New York: Everyman’s Library, 2004).

The Jean Genet quotation, “Your song was very beautiful,” is from the English edition of Jean Genet’s
Les Nègres—The Blacks
(New York: Grove Press, 1960). The Dolores Dominique Neptune quotations are from an e-mail message dated January 30, 2010, sent by Claudine Michel, Professor, Department of Black Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. The Evelyne Trouillot quotation is from Evelyne Trouillot, “Aftershocks,” Op-ed,
New York Times
, January 20, 2010. The Lyonel Trouillot quotation is from Lyonel Trouillot, “Carnet de Bord à Haiti: Fais divers de nos mauvais jours, 5/9,” published on January 24, 2010, at
www.lepoint.fr
; the translation is mine.

Adam (Biblical figure),
5
-6

Afterwords: Novelists on Their Novels
,
33

AIDS,
89
,
91

airline flights,
115
-21

Alexis, Jacques Stephen,
11
-14

Allende, Isabel,
112
-13

Allende, Salvador,
112

Alliance Française,
7
,
43
-44

Almodóvar, Pedro,
47

Alphonse-Férère, Gérard,
49

Alvin Ailey Dance Company,
129

Amado, Jorge,
15

andaki
(code),
65

Les Araignées du soir (Spiders of the Night),
68

Aristide, Jean-Bertrand,
43
,
47
,
48
,
77
,
83
,
99
-101,
104
,
142
,
164

art: dangerousness of,
8
-11,
19
-20,
148

Haitian,
8
-14,
44
,
127

and persuasion,
7
-8.

See also
writers

Artibonite Valley,
51
-52

assassinations,
41
,
46
,
48
,
53
-58,
63
,
65
,
71

attachés,
77
-80

bagay la
(the thing) [Haitian earthquake],
168

Barthes, Roland,
15
,
139
,
141
,
147
-48

Basquiat, Jean-Michel,
127
-35

To Repel Ghosts
,
133
-34

Toussaint L’Ouverture Versus Savonarola
,
132
-33

Untitled 1982
,
132

Baudelaire, Charles,
60

Beauséjour, Haiti,
21
-40

Belafonte, Harry,
83

Bel Air, Haiti,
7
-8,
13
,
170
-72

Bélance, Alèrte,
46
,
73
-85

Bell, Beverly,
Walking on Fire
,
85

Beloved
(film),
84

Benoit, Patricia,
76
-77,
81
-84

Bible,
12

Bonaparte, Napoleon,
99
,
132

Bouckman (Boukman),
102

Breath, Eyes, Memory
(Danticat),
31
-35

Breton, André,
129

Brigit, Gran,
149

Bush, George W.,
108

camps,
18
,
43
,
164
-65,
169

Camus, Albert,
9
-11,
18

Caligula
,
6
-8,
12
,
16

“Create Dangerously,”
13

“Jonas ou l’artiste au travail” (Jonah, or the Artist at Work),
148

Capote, Truman,
129

Carpentier, Alejo,
The Kingdom of This World
,
101
-5

Carter, Jimmy,
141

catastrophes,
107
-13,
146
-47

Center for Constitutional Rights,
84

Central African Republic,
100

Le Centre d’Art, Port-au-Prince,
128
,
129

Cervantes, Miguel de,
15

Césaire, Aimé,
9
,
15

Cézanne, Paul,
71

Charles, Jacqueline,
146
-47

Charles, Jhon,
163
,
165
-66,
168
-70

The Charlie Rose Show
(television show),
46

Christophe, Henri,
102
-4,
164

Ciné Club,
43
-44

cinema,
43
-46

Clinton, Bill,
83

Le Club de Bonne Humeur,
7
-8

coffee,
29
,
35
-37,
39
-40

Colette,
11

USNS
Comfort
,
173

common humanity,
109
-13

Cook, Mercer,
45

Corneille, Pierre,
Le Cid
,
6

Cortés, Hernán,
132

courage, of artists,
10
,
148
-49

Courage and Pain
(documentary),
73
-85

creation myths,
5
-7

Cuba,
101
-3

Dalembert, Louis Phillipe,
13

Daniels, Josephus,
64

Dannat, Adrian,
125

Danticat, Kelly,
75

Davvetas, Demosthenes,
132

Day, Edner,
13

death: and deportation,
88
-93

in Egypt,
19
-20

as family matter,
22
-27,
31
,
38
-40,
88
-96

in Haiti,
16
-17,
137

last image before,
137

photography and,
139
-40,
142
-47

Vodou and,
134
-35

writers and,
17
-20

declarations of independence: American,
98

Haitian,
104

Delens (cousin’s roommate),
89
-91,
94

Délira Délivrance (fictional character),
45
-46

Demme, Jonathan,
42
-43,
46
,
50
,
55
,
84

The Agronomist
,
52
-53

Depestre, René,
9

Deren, Maya,
vii
,
131
-32

Dessalines, Jean-Jacques,
103
-4,
164

The Dew Breaker
(Danticat),
11
,
62

Díaz, Junot,
149

Diderot, Denis,
15

disasters,
107
-13,
146
-47

Dominican Republic,
70

Dominique, Jan J.,
59
,
61
-66,
70
-71,
159

Mémoire d’une amnésique
(Memoirs of an Amnesiac),
61
-65

Mémoire errante
(Wandering Memory),
52
,
66
,
70

Dominique, Jean,
41
-58,
65
,
70
-71,
83
,
159

Mais je suis belle
(But I Am Beautiful),
44

Dominique, Philippe,
42

Donna (airline passenger),
117
-18

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor,
71

Drouin, Louis,
1
-8,
12
-14,
20
,
44
,
63
,
137
-41,
148
-50

Du Bois, W.E.B.,
64

Dumas, Alexandre, fils,
Camille
,
60

Dumas, Alexandre, père,
The Three Musketeers
,
60

Dumas, Marie-Cesette,
60

Duvalier, François “Papa Doc,”
1
-2,
5
-9,
12
,
16
,
42
,
63
,
67
-69,
137
,
140
,
143

Duvalier, Jean-Claude,
10
,
69

dyaspora
,
49
-51.
See also
exile

Egypt,
19
-20

Ellison, Ralph Waldo,
10

“Flying Home”,
124
,
126

Emerson, Ralph Waldo,
10
,
16
,
124
-26

Erzulie Freda,
129
,
133
,
134

Étonnants Voyageurs,
160

Euripides,
11

Eve (Biblical figure),
5
-6,
10

executions,
1
-8,
12
,
63
,
137
-39,
149
-50

exile,
6
,
69
.
See also dyaspora

Fanon, Frantz,
9

Farivar, Masood,
112

Farrell, Patrick,
146

Fellini, Federico,
La Strada
,
43

fiction, and truth,
32
-33

Flaubert, Gustave,
15

Madame Bovary
,
66

flying.
See
airline flights

Fort Dimanche,
43

Fouché, Franck,
9
-10

France,
99

Frankétienne,
13
,
14

FRAPH,
84

Freeman Funeral Home,
89
-94

Garcia Márquez, Gabriel,
One Hundred Years of Solitude
,
17

Gédéon, Marie Maude,
119

General Hospital, Port-au-Prince,
163
,
165
-66

Genet, Jean,
Les Nègres
,
153
-54,
173

Gibbs, Nancy,
109

Ginen,
134
-35

Glover, Danny,
83

God and gods,
5
,
19
,
55
,
71
,
103
-104,
129
,
134
,
160
,
173

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von

Gonaïves, Haiti,
158

Gopnik, Adam,
135

Goudougoudou (Haitian earthquake),
168

Greek literature,
9

Greene, Graham,
The Comedians
,
9

guapa
(beautiful and courageous),
47
,
53
,
66

Haiti: art of,
8
-14,
44
,
127

assassinations in,
41
,
46
,
48
,
53
-58,
63
,
65
,
71

cinema in,
43
-46

death in,
16
-17

declaration of independence of,
104

Duvalier fils’s rule in,
69
-70

Duvalier’s rule in,
1
-14,
42
-44,
50
,
60
,
63
,
67
-69,
140

and
dyaspora
,
49
-51

earthquake in,
18
-19,
150
-51,
153
-54
156
-73

literacy in,
44
,
50
. (
see also
reading in)

literary portrayals of,
32
-35

memory in,
63
-65

military regime in,
46
,
73
-85

photographs of,
139
-45,
150
-51

popular perception of,
32
,
109
-10

post-revolution,
99
-101

reading in,
59
-61,
65
(
see also
literacy in)

revolution in,
67
,
97
-105

Tropical Storm Jeanne in,
108
,
158

United States and,
43
,
64
,
69
,
97
-100

writers in,
9
,
13
-14,
28
,
60
,
68
-69

Hamilton, Alexander,
99

Hammad, Suheir,
123
,
159

Heartfield, Kate,
109

Holder, Geoffrey,
129

hougan
(Vodou priest),
131

Hughes, Langston,
45

hurricanes,
107
-9

Hurston, Zora Neale,
107

Hyppolite, Hector,
128
-35,
164

illiteracy,
44
,
50

Ilyana, Tante,
21
-31,
35
-40,
94
,
119