Port-au-Prince, another dull morning tinged with violence and black magic. Jeremy Assaël, a Jewish shopkeeper, sees his friend and lover, Lucien, gunned down outside his shop by a vengeful policeman.
In a Haiti that exists in the perpetual night of misery and oppression, Jeremy wonders if his only option is exile. His best friend from school, Fresnel, has disappeared in ominous circumstances. So he embarks on a quest to discover his fate.
His search leads him to a corrupt pastor, a shady revolutionary and a voodoo priest. What is revealed is not only himself but contemporary Haiti, a land where everything and nothing is possible.
JEAN-EUPHELE MILCÉ was born in 1969 in Haiti. After studying Applied Linguistics at the State University of Haiti and training in Information and Library Management, he taught Creole literature and was Director of the National Library of Haiti. He has published several works in Creole and is co-founder of the literary magazine Lire Haiti.
He lives in Haiti.
TRANSLATED from the French by Christopher Moncrieff
Cover Illustration Tiane Doan Na Champassak
ISBN (10) 1 901 285 76 6
ISBN (13) 978 1 901285 76 5
" … the delicate and surprising story, in this fine English translation, ends by bringing together the pieces, the very bare bones of understanding a contradictory and destructive nation.”
NORA MAHONY -
Times Literary Supplement
“This is the understatement of poetry against horror. Not a single sentence leaves you feeling indifferent.”
BERTIL GALLAND - L’Arpenteur – member of the Prix Georges-Nicole jury
“A novelist to watch closely”
ELISABETH VUST - 24 Heures
“This is the dense and fascinating tale of a quest, portraying a Haiti that is both sensual and desperate, cynical out of survival instinct and has long been stripped off its dignity…”
FLORENCE MICHEL - La Liberte
FULL REVIEWS
TLS Review
The Independent Review
