The Romancero aux étoiles of Jacques Stephen Alexis as a Suture of a Split Nation

Authors

  • Florencia Viterbo Universidad de Buenos Aires/CONICET

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35588/pa.v10i17.4111

Keywords:

haitian literature, Jacques Stephen Alexis, popular culture, haitian identity, Duvalier Regime

Abstract

In 1960, Jacques Stephen Alexis, as a continuator of Haitian indigenism whose cornerstone is Ainsi parla l’oncle of Jean Price Mars, publishes Romancero aux étoiles, a book of stories where he invites a culted scholar to defend the roots of the popular Haitian, to suture a nation split into a wealthy urban elite and an illiterate mass of peasants.

Intertwining an orality of popular features with a neo-baroque writing, this publication implies a nationalist political gesture: in the context of the bloody dictatorship of François Duvalier, Alexis exalts the rural realm and considers it a powerful weapon to defend national identity against culture foreign imperialist, which advances under the auspices of the Duvalier regime.

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Published

2020-04-27

How to Cite

The Romancero aux étoiles of Jacques Stephen Alexis as a Suture of a Split Nation. (2020). Palimpsesto, 10(17). https://doi.org/10.35588/pa.v10i17.4111