People are always asking me for books to read about Haiti. The problem is that few libraries have many books about Haiti, and most books which I would recommend are out of print.
So I have put together a list of books which I am fairly sure are still in print and can be ordered in bookstores. But, I need help. If you know books that are in print but not on my list, please let me know. If you know books which are on my list are really out-of-print, please let me know that too, and I'll correct the errors.
I will need title, author and full ordering information if possible.
NOTE NOTE NOTE
If you are not on my PEOPLE TO PEOPLE, INC. e-mail address list, you might want to get on. I will be sending out lots of mailings about Haiti, including book and film reviews, articles about history and culture, and updates about the work of PEOPLE TO PEOPLE in Haiti. Occasionally you will even have to tolerate some begging of funds, but not often. Just drop me a note and I'll add you to the list.
Anvers, Paul. OF RICE AND BLOOD: A HAITIAN NOVEL. CIDIHCA, Montreal, 1994. (Translated by Carrol Coates) CIDIHCA 417 Saint Pierre Montreal, Canada Aristide, Jean-Bertrand. JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, 1993. ISBN # 0-88344-845-9. $14.95. Orbis Books Maryknoll, NY 10545 A personal account of his life by Aristide written with Linda M. Maloney. Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick. IN THE SHADOW OF POWERS. DANTES BELLEGARDE IN HAITIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT. Humanities Press International, Atlantic Highlands, NJ. 1985. ISBN # 0-391-03214-3, hardbound, $39.50. Bentivegna, Joseph F. THE NEGLECTED AND ABUSED. A PHYSICIAN'S YEAR IN HAITI. 1961. ISBN # 0-962-60010-5. Single copy $12.95 + $1.50 postage. Reductions for multiple copies. Michelle Publishing Co, 2317 Silas Deane Highway Rocky Hill, Ct. 06067 (203) 721-8800 A moving account of an American physician's year working with Mother Teresa's sisters doing service work in Haiti. Along the way Bentivegna does an excellent job of looking at the situation of health care, or rather the lack of it, in Haiti today. Brown, Karen McCarthy. MAMA LOLA: A VODOU PRIESTESS IN BROOKLYN. Univ. of California Press. Berkeley, 1991. ISBN # 0-520-07073-9 (hardbound) also in paper. Although set in Brooklyn, New York, this is an excellent book about Haitian Voodoo. It gives the feeling tone and insiders perspective to Voodoo as a living religion. Carpentier, Alejo. KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD. (Reprint) Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. New York. (800) 631-8571. ISBN # 0-374-52197-2 $10.00. A novel that deals with the revolutionary period in a surrealistic manner. Courlander, Harold. THE BORDEAUX NARRATIVE. Univ. of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque, NM. 1990. ISDN: 0-8263-0915-1. A marvelous novel about the folk traditions and fantastical entities that people the world of Haitian peasants. Danticat, Edwidge. BREATH, EYES, MEMORY. Soho press, 1994. ISBN # 1-56947-005-7. Hardbound. $20.00 Soho Press, INc. 853 Broadway New York, NY 10003 Brilliant novel about three Haitian women locked into the controlling pressures of Haitian culture. Two of them, mother and daughter, move to the U.S. and then face the clash of two cultures. Written with sensitivity and power. Davis, Wade. PASSAGE OF DARKNESS. THE ETHNOBIOLOGY OF THE HAITIAN ZOMBIE. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1988. ISBN # 0-8078-1776-7 (hard bound) ISBN # 0-807804210-9 (paperback). An intriguing hunt for the alleged causes of zombification. Some extremely interesting material of the secret societies of Haiti. Davis, Wade. THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW. Simon and Schuster, NY. 1985. ISBN # 0-671-50247-6. (hardbound) also available in paper. A popularized Indiana Jones version of the more scholarly book cited above. Certainly more entertaining reading than Passage, but less scholarly. Degand, Yolande. ALWAYS COMES THE MORNING. Vintage Press, NY, 1990. ISBN # 0-533-08533-0, hardbound, $15.95. A novel set in Haiti. Desmangles, Leslie G. THE FACES OF THE GODS. VODOU AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN HAITI. Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1992. ISBN # 0-8078-2059-8, hardbound and ISBN # 0-8078-4393-8, paper. A study of the interrelationship of Haitian Voodoo and Roman Catholicisim. Dunham, Katherine. DANCES OF HAITI. (Reprint) By Center For Afro-American Studies, Univ. of Cal., Los Angeles. ISBN # 0-934934-17-7 (hard bound) ISBN # 0-934934-11-8 (paper back). Dunham, Katherine. ISLAND POSSESSED. (Reprint) Univ. of Chicago Press. Was to be out in summer of 1994. Farmer, Paul. AIDS AND ACCUSATION: HAITI AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF BLAME. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley. 1992. ISBN # 0-520-07701-6. A careful and scholarly analysis of the situation and origins of AIDS in Haiti. Farmer argues that Haiti is not one of the originating areas of AIDS, and that the depiction of Haiti as an AIDS capital is mistaken. Farmer, Paul. THE USES OF HAITI. ISBN # 1-56751-034-5 (paper $14.95) ISBN # 1-56751-035-3 (hardbound: $29.95) (From the publisher: "...reveals U.S. policy to be moving in well-worn tracks. ...brings into stark relief the myriad forces that have long kept the majority of Haitians poor, sick and silenced." Common Courage Press Box 702 Monroe, ME 04951 (800) 497-3207, visa, mc $2.50 postage and handling. Fick, Carolyn. THE MAKING OF HAITI. THE SAINT DOMINGUE REVOLUTION FROM BELOW. Univ. of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1990 Freeman, Bryant C. MEDICAL DICTIONARY. HAITIAN CREOLE -- ENGLISH. ENGLISH -- HAITIAN CREOLE. WITH GLOSSARY OF FOOD AND DRINK. La Presse Evangelique, 1992. Available from: Mount Oread Bookshop University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 (913) 864-4431 (credit card purchase possible) The authoritative medical dictionary for English/Creole by one of the leading linguists of Haitian Creole. Freeman, Bryant C. SURVIVAL CREOLE. La Presse Evangelique, 1990. Same ordering info as his book above this one. A short but useful little book of Creole phrases in Creole and English, and lots of food and drink vocabulary too. Greene, Anne. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN HAITI: POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE. Michigan State U. Press, East Lansing, 1993. ISBN # 0-87013-327-6 hardbound. from the jacket cover: "The focus is most especially on the relations between the Church as an agent for change and the deeply entrenched classes who surrounded the Duvalier government." (Robert Lacerte) Hoffman, Leon-Francois. HAITI: COULEURS, CROYANCES, CREOLE. Editions du CIDIHCA et Editions Henri Deschamps, 1990. Montreal and Port-au-Prince. Hurston, Zora Neale. TELL MY HORSE (Reprint, original, 1938). Harper and Row, New York. ISBN # 0-06-091649-4. Book on Voodoo and life in Haiti. The author has become somewhat of a folk hero. The book is impressionistic and not always accurate. James, C.L.R. THE BLACK JACOBINS. Vintage books, NY, 1963. I know there is a paper back of this still in print, but it may be by Monthly Review Press and not Vintage. This is a classic book on the Haitian Revolution by an excellent Marxian scholar. Laguerre, Michel S. THE MILITARY AND SOCIETY IN HAITI. The University of Tenn. Press, Knoxville. 1993. ISBN # 0-87049-773-1 hardbound. Lawless, Robert. HAITI'S BAD PRESS. Schenkman Press, Vt. ISBN # 0-87047-060-4, hardbound, and ISBN # 0-87047-061-2, paper, 1992 Schenkman Books, Inc. 118 Main St. Rochester, VT 05767 An important book which analyses and documents the long standing bias in the world press against the nation of Haiti. Lewis, Norman. TO RUN ACROSS THE SEA. Vintage, London, 1991 ISBN # 0-09-99775700, paper, 5.00 British pounds. A book of travel short stories with two delightful tales from Haiti. Metraux, Alfred. VOODOO IN HAITI. [Reprint] (Trans. by Hugo Charteris, with new intro by Sidney Mintz.) Schocken Books, NY, 1972. This is one of the best books every written on Haitian Voodoo. Moore, Brian. NO OTHER LIFE. Doubleday, NY., 1993. ISBN # 0-385-41515-x, hardbound, $21.00. A novel set in the time of Aristide's presidency. Plummer, Brenda Gayle. HAITI AND THE GREAT POWERS, 1902-1915. Louisiana State U. Press, Baton Rouge. 1988. ISBN # 0-8071-1409-X. This is an excellent historical treatment of an important period of gunboat diplomacy prior to the first U.S. occupation. Plummer, Brenda Gayle. HAITI AND THE UNITED STATES: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT. Univ. of Georgia Press, Athens, 1992. ISBN # 0-8203-1422-6 (hard bound) ISBN # 0-8203-1423-4 (paper back). Prose, Francine. PRIMITIVE PEOPLE. Farrar Straus Giroux, NY, 1992. ISNB # 0-374-23722-0, hardbound. $20.00 A novel that slips in and out of Haiti but is mainly situated in the U.S. Rainwater, MarVenea L. SLOW OF HEART. Latitudes Press, 1988. ISBN # 0-941179-19-2. paper, $10.00. Latitudes Press P.O. Box 613 Mansfield, TX 76063 (817) 477-1777. A short novel of Haiti. Ridgeway, James, ed. THE HAITI FILES. DECODING THE CRISIS. Essential Books, Washington, DC, 1994. ISBN # 0-96212-597. paper. $10.00. (From the jacket) Reports, original documents, secret memos, and testimony, as well as articles by a broad range of journalists and scholars,...(it) offers a clear, com- pelling, and often disturbing picture of the issues at stake in Haiti -- and the U.S.'s stake in those issues..." Rigaud, Milo. SECRETS OF VOODOO. (reprint, originally published in 1969.) City Lights Books, San Francisco. ISBN # 0-87286-171-6. $9.95. Rodman, Selden and Carole Cleaver. SPIRITS OF THE NIGHT: THE VAUDUN GODS OF HAITI. Spring Publications, 1992. ISBN#0-88214-354-9, paper. $16.00 Spring Publications P.O. Box 222069 Dallas, TX 75222 An intriguing slim little volume which is excellent in what it does, it just doesn't do enough. Ros, Martin. NIGHT OF FIRE: THE BLACK NAPOLEON AND THE BATTLE FOR HAITI. Sarpendon, NY. ISBN # 0-9627613-8-9 Temple, Frances. TASTE OF SALT. A STORY OF MODERN HAITI. Orchard Books, NY, 1992. ISBN # 0-531-05459-4, hard bound. Orchard Books 95 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 A touching novel of two young Aristide supporters, struggling for life, meaning and love in Haiti during the early days of Aristide's presidency. Thompson, Ian. BONJOUR BLANC. A JOURNEY THROUGH HAITI. Hutchinson, London. 1992. ISBN # 0-09-177078-5. 16.99 British pounds. Hardbound. A delightful and insightful insight into Haiti. Sort of in the genre of informed travel literature. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. HAITI STATE AGAINST NATION: THE ORIGINS AND LEGACY OF DUVALIERISM. Monthly Review Press, NY, 1990. $12.00 paper. ISBN # 0-85345-756-5. Venzon, Anne Cipriano, ed. GENERAL SMEDLEY DARLINGTON BUTLER: THE LETTERS OF A LEATHERNECK, 1898-1931. (esp. p.149-202. Chief of Police in Haiti). Prager, New York, 1992. ISBN # 0-275-94141-8 hardbound. Letters from the 1st occupation of Haiti. =================================================== At the bottom of the list are some recent books, some which were even relatively popular, but which, to the best of my knowledge are no longer in print. That list might save you time in looking for books you would assume are still available. Abbott, Elizabeth. HAITI: THE DUVALIERS AND THEIR LEGACY. McGraw Hill, NY, 1988. ISBN # 0-07-046029-9. Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick. HAITI: THE BREACHED CITADEL. Westview Press, Boulder, CO. 1990. ISBN # 0-8133-7172-4. Dupuy, Alex. HAITI IN THE WORLD ECONOMY: CLASS, RACE AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT SINCE 1700. Westview Press, Boulder, CO. 1989. ISBN # 0-8133-7348-4. Hunt, Alfred. N. HAITI'S INFLUENCE ON ANTEBELLUM AMERICA. SLUMBERING VOLCANO IN THE CARIBBEAN. Louisiana State Univ. Press, Baton Rouge. 1988. ISBN # 0-8071-1370-0. Wilentz, Amy. THE RAINY SEASON: HAITI SINCE DUVALIER. Simon and Schuster, NY, 1989. ISBN # 0-671-64186-7.
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