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Avant que les ombres s'effacent by Louis-Philippe Dalembert, and: Rapatriés by Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey

2018; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/jhs.2018.0011

2333-7311

Nathan H. Dize,

Caribbean and African Literature and Culture

Reviewed by: Avant que les ombres s'effacent by Louis-Philippe Dalembert, and: Rapatriés by Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey Nathan H. Dize Avant que les ombres s'effacent. By Louis-Philippe Dalembert. Paris: Sabine Wespieser, 2017. ISBN 978-2-84805-215-1. 296 pp. €21 paperback. Rapatriés. By Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey. Paris: Seuil, 2017. ISBN 192 pp. €16 paperback. Since the earthquake of 2010, Haitian writers have brought necessary context to the social, political, and cultural implications of the event in poetry, short stories, and novels situated in the months following goudougoudou. Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey and Louis-Philippe Dalembert evoke the events of January 12, 2010, in new and innovative ways in their 2017 novels Avant que les ombres s'effacent and Rapatriés. Rather than allow the devastating aftermath to dominate the larger narrative, Dalembert and Pierre-Dahomey present the earthquake either as a moment of pivot or as a contemporary temporal reference that figures into a longer history of Haiti and global migrations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The two novels present extended reflections on migration and sites of refuge in the Caribbean, Europe, and the Americas in order to focus on the humanity of migrants and those who assist them in finding security. Set against the backdrop of World War II, Avant que les ombres s'effacent tells the life story of a Polish Jew, Dr. Ruben Schwarzberg, and his family as they attempt to escape Nazi occupation, concentration camps, and French internment camps. Named for the word "ruby" found in his mother's copy of Anténor Firmin's De l'égalité de races humaines, Ruben seeks both spiritual and physical refuge in Haiti. Once the Schwarzbergs escape occupied Poland, they establish residence in Berlin, where they later experience Kristallnacht, the event that ultimately fragments the family. Ruben's newlywed sister Salomé, his brother in-law Jürgen, and his Bobe [grandmother] flee to New York, where Columbia University has sponsored work visas for the young couple. Meanwhile his aunt emigrates to Palestine in hopes that the ancestral homeland will provide adequate refuge. Ruben and his uncle Joe also attempt to leave Berlin but are caught by the SS and sent to a concentration camp in Buchenwald. Here they meet "Johnny the American," a light-skinned Haitian American man traveling in Europe. Aided by the Haitian embassy in Berlin, Johnny succeeds in helping Ruben and his uncle escape the camp. Thanks to the Haitian community abroad, including the likes of Ida Faubert, Ruben ultimately succeeds in emigrating to Haiti. Just as Jean-Jacques Dessalines did in his 1805 Constitution with the Polish who fought with the Armée Indigène, the [End Page 169] Haitian government accepts Dr. Ruben Schwarzberg into the nation.1 It is on Haitian soil, after the earthquake of 2010, that the Polish doctor will be reunited with his aunt Ruth's granddaughter, Deborah, who comes to Haiti to work with an NGO. As with many Haitian novels written in the aftermath of goudougoudou, NGOs and humanitarian workers have become an integral part of twentieth- and twenty-first-century narratives. Although this is a relatively minor plot element in Dalembert's novel, Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey is centrally focused on humanitarian service, intervention, and interference in his novel Rapatriés. Pierre-Dahomey's Rapatriés presents an extended reflection on the human impact of migration. In the opening scene of the novel, Belliqueuse Louissaint is shipwrecked during her attempted passage from Haiti to the United States during the era of Haitian "boat people." Once she is officially "repatriated," Belliqueuse—also known as Belli—and the other near-emigrants are sent by the Haitian government to live in a fictitious neighborhood of Port-au-Prince ironically named Rapatriés (repatriated). Traumatized by the drowning death of her infant child, Nathan, Belli goes on to have two daughters, Bélial and Luciole, and a son, Fedner, by an abusive man named Nènè. After the birth of Luciole, Belli realizes that she cannot take care of both her daughters. Without alerting Nènè, she puts them up for adoption through Madame Pompilus Estimé, a...