"People who leave islands always bring a complex mythology."
In Ayiti, originally published by Artistically Declined Press in 2011, novelist and cultural critic Roxane Gay (Hunger) provides a glimpse into the experiences of Haitians and Haitian Americans. In 15 brief stories, she forges a direct path into the personal and political inheritances of her characters and the experiences rooted deep within their bodies.
In "Voodoo Child," Gay pokes fun at the stereotypes surrounding Haitians and Vodou. "There is No 'E' in Zombi, Which Means There Can Be No You or We" is a "primer" on what zombis really are and a story of desperate love. In "Of Ghosts and Shadows" and "A Cool, Dry Place," lovers push through taboos and borders, finding comfort and tiny liberations in one another. "The Harder They Come" takes to task the tourist industry in Haiti, while "The Dirt We Do Not Eat" and "All Things Being Relative" rebuff the media's representation of the country. In "Sweet on the Tongue" and "In the Manner of Water or Light," two of the more intense stories in the collection, mothers and daughters harbor secrets and seek what healing they can after enduring unspeakable violence.
There is a vast land of experiences between the so-called idyllic or flawed, between poverty or excess, between a pure here or a pure there. In so finely narrating some of these experiences, Gay shows us her fierce love for this "first free black nation in the world," this "island of contradictions." --Shannon Hanks-Mackey, freelance editor and managing editor at the Black Scholar