“Atonement…was possible and available for everyone.”
A
uthor Danticat introduces her story of Haitian immigrants and the lives they have escaped in Haiti with the story of Ka, a young sculptress whose parents think of her as a “good angel,” her name also associated symbolically with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Ka is in Florida with her father to deliver a powerfully rendered sculpture to a Haitian TV actress. Ka’s father, who served as the model for the sculpture, however, destroys it, confessing tearfully that he is not the man his daughter has always believed him to be, and admitting that the disfiguring scar on his face was not the result of torture in a Haitian prison. He was “the hunter,” he says, and “not the prey,” one of the “dew breakers,” or torturers, who as part of the Tonton Macoutes, committed political assassinations and inflicted unimaginable tortures on orders of dictators Francois Duvalier and his son “Baby Doc” between 1957-86.
In a series of episodes which resemble short stories more than a novel in form, Danticat illuminates the lives of approximately a dozen Haitian immigrants as they remember this traumatic period “back home.” As the “novel” alternates between past and present, it is told from disparate points of view–those of Ka’s mother and father, a young man visiting Haiti after ten years to see his blinded aunt, a wedding seamstress in New York, a Haitian-American reporter investigating a possible “dew-breaker,” a man remembering a Haitian friend’s long-ago disappearance as he awaits his son’s birth in New York, and a popular Haitian preacher whose arrest affects lives for many years.
Francois Duvalier and son “Baby Doc”
The novel gains much of its power from the horrors of vividly described torture and the overwhelming fear engendered by the Tonton Macoute militia. By calling up such emotionally charged memories and presenting them in a series of episodes, the author can let the personal stories unfold without having to order events so that they lead to a grand climax. What distinguishes this “novel” from a short story collection, however, is the repeating motifs that appear throughout these seemingly separate episodes (a man’s widow’s peak, a woman’s fear of cemeteries, for example), and by the end of the novel the connections among all the characters become obvious. A vivid documentation of many of the worst human rights abuses of the century, Danticat’s novel is a moving testament to the Haitians’ resilient spirit and a celebration of their survival.
Also by Danticat: EVERYTHING INSIDE
Notes: The author’s photo is from http://www.123people.com
The photo of Francois Duvalier and his son “Baby Doc,” his successor, is taken from http://www.webster.edu The photo itself comes originally from WRITTEN IN BLOOD, by Robert Debs and Nancy Heinl, p. 499
“masterpiece of Korean fiction of the twentieth century” and as “one of the outstanding literary achievements during Korea’s colonial era,” Three Generations, written in 1931, has recently been translated into English for the first time. Published in Seoul as a newspaper serial from January through August of 1931, author Yom Sang-seop appeals to his Korean audience with his vibrant characters and his depiction of real life, especially as lived by traditional, middle-class Koreans. The action reveals, on the domestic level, the challenges to traditional ways of life and the sociopolitical conflicts of the era.
rst biography of his new Great Stars series, which also includes Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, and Bette Davis, author David Thomson examines the career of Ingrid Bergman, from her makeup-free screen test for David O. Selznick (1939) through Autumn Sonata (1978) made with Ingmar Bergman. Using the plots of her films as a framework for placing Bergman’s life and career into perspective, Thomson shows how each film drew on her life experience and increasing maturity to provide added depth to her characterizations. Thomson, a film critic, film historian, and author of Have You Seen…?”: A Personal Introduction to 1000 Films, is uniquely suited for this role, and as he presents each film and critiques Ingrid Bergman’s performances, the reader sees her growing on both the personal and professional levels.
tural as an actress, and impulsive and romantic as a person, Bergman conveyed sensuality at the same time that she conveyed innocence, and the public loved her. They saw her as Sister Mary Benedict in Bells of St. Mary’s and as Joan of Arc, never knowing much about her private life, and ignoring the fact that she left her young child and husband, Petter Lindstrom, at home in Sweden to come to the US to make movies. Her affairs with Gary Cooper and Victor Fleming were never reported. Alfred Hitchcock was unabashedly in love with her and was devastated, as was her public, when she became involved with Roberto Rossellini in 1950, while working on the film of Stromboli. Her flagrant affair, her pregnancy, and her out-of-wedlock child in 1950 became the subject of a speech on in the US Congress and were regarded as a complete betrayal of the public trust which had believed her image. Bergman stayed out of the US until 1956, when she made Anastasia, with Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes, for which she won another Academy Award, though she did not make any public appearances in the US until 1958. Her friend Cary Grant to accepted her Oscar for her in 1956, but when she finally appeared in 1958 as an Academy Award presenter, she received a standing ovation from the audience.
s remarkable debut novel, set in her home country of Ethiopia in 1974, brings to life the historical period from the assassination of Emperor Haile Selassie through the communist revolution and the subsequent resistance movement which followed shortly on its heels. The Emperor had failed to recognize and take action to mitigate the horrific famine which had cost two hundred thousand lives. A well-publicized 1974 television documentary, showing the educated Ethiopian public the horrors of famine in the remote areas of their country, juxtaposed against films of the wasteful excesses of palace functions, set the country up for revolution. Initially planned by students who wanted more accountability and change, the revolution was soon pre-empted by the strong military, which had its own agenda. Within a year, the ultra-right , known as the Derg, was in charge of the country, the military consolidating its power while arresting many of the students who had made the revolution possible.
The novel is well constructed, with characters the reader comes to care about, but it is difficult to read. The violence, which increases in intensity over the course of three hundred pages, involves false arrests, beatings, rapes, psychological warfare, brutal tortures in an effort to extract sometimes non-existent information, and the mutilation of women and children. Some scenes involving the maiming of a child are almost impossible to read. The author’s dedication to presenting a full picture of the almost inhuman behavior of the country’s powerful leaders and misguided followers, however, creates unforgettable tableaux, and makes the reader hope for a better future in the aftermath of this action.
France in 1985, The Prospector signaled a change in what had been the author’s style until then. Abandoning the experimental style he employed in the 1970s, with its elusive characters and almost plotless “stories,” author J. M. G. Le Clezio here creates an adventure story which is also a coming-of-age story and an exploration of culture. Setting his narrative in Mauritius, where his French family has deep roots and where he now has a home, he creates a unique novel filled with lush descriptions and vibrant characters who appeal to the romantic in all of us while simultaneously evoking the violence and horror which mar their lives and make a mockery of “civilization.” The novel’s exotic setting inspires dreams of lost worlds, mysteries, and lives tied to nature and its beauties. At the same time, however, the author is exploring the damage wrought by foreigners whose sole purpose is to tame the land and use it for commercial purposes, specifically the plantation owners who have created and cruelly oversee the sugarcane fields worked by underpaid local help.
n or emphasizes a theme, to which the author deliberately calls attention. At various times his characters remind us that “Gold is worthless. You must not be scared…,” “[Death] is deceitful and insidious, keeping its whereabouts secret until it wants to pounce,” “In the end it’s the lice who win wars,” and “It is as if everything we see taking place here is only a game.” The lush descriptions, the often idyllic setting, and the sensual romantic scenes counteract the moralizing, however, while the constant intrusion of harsh realities keeps the novel from becoming sentimental or predictable.
