Poet - Haiti Observer Blog

Alexandre Dumas was one of the most famous novelist and playwright known to the world. Born on 24th July 1802, Alexandre Dumas was a French writer whose work has been translated in over 100 languages. Some of his widely popular novels include names like The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later and Twenty Years After. 20th century onwards, many of his novels have been adapted in well over 200 movies.

Alexandre Dumas was one of the most prolific writers of his time. Capable of writing in multiple genres, Dumas' writing career started as a playwright and his first play was a huge success. The second play by Dumas was another hit which earned him enough money to get into full-time writing job. He wrote several travel books and magazine articles as well. Théâtre Historique was founded by Dumas in 1840 in Paris.

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Maurice Alfrédo Sixto, one of the biggest names in Haitian literature, was the son of an engineer Maurice Alfredo Sixto (father and son bears the same name) was born on 23 May 1919 in Gonaives, Haiti. He was a man of many colors-- a professor, ambassador, translator, tour guide, reporter are some of them to name a few. He will be remembered for his immense contribution in Haitian Creole language that took Haitian culture to a glorious stature. His father was a rich man.

In his childhood, Maurice Sixto attended the most prestigious school (Saint Louis de Gonzague), after completing high school lessons, he studied at Haitian Military Academy for a couple of months and joined for law courses. While studying his law course, he worked as a news reporter and a radio presenter. Thereafter his career took new turns and he worked as an English teacher in Republic of Congo. He left Congo in 1969 and decided to settle in Paris and work as Haitian diplomat in France.

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Jérémie is located in the Jeremie Arrondissement in Haiti and is the capital city of the Grand'Anse Department. It was founded in 1756. Navasa Island is located around 40 nautical miles to the west of the city.

The City Of Poets

Numerous historians, writers as well as poets were born in Jeremie city and hence it is termed as the city of poets. Prominent writers such as Etzer Vilaire and Emile Roumer were born here. General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the father of Alexandre Dumas Pere a historic novelist, was born in Jeremie. Very close to the city, flows the Grand-Anse River.

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Oswald Durant was one of the most important poets to come out of a nation chock full of influential, significant writers. Very little information is readily available about his childhood, save that he was born in Cap-Haïtien on the 17th of September, 1840, but the life he led past this period of no record has led him to be likened to the great wordsmiths of Italy and England, Dante and Shakespeare respectively. Also, like most other of Haiti's important writers, Durant had strong political views that, in him, formed aspirations.

Oswald Durant became published in his early thirties with works like 'La Mort de nos Cocotier's, 'Pantoum Triste' , 'Rires et Pleurs', 1883's 'Choucoune', about the comeliness of Haiti's women, and 'Chant National', a poem about Haiti's history that rose to the pinnacle of popularity for its patriotism.

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Haitian storyteller Maurice Sixto began life in Gonaïves in 1919. Born into privileged circumstances, son of an engineer, he studied at elite Sainte Louis de Gonzague High School and pursued a legal career at University of Haiti. While there, he fell into journalism working at Le Matin. He then taught English in the Republic of Congo, and was attached to the diplomatic service in Paris.

However, Sixto's greatest contribution to Haiti were his gifts as raconteur. Using his skills as a voice actor, he developed characters to address social ills hounding Haitian culture. One controversial topic of his satires was the unspeakable practice of child slavery, known as restavék. Restavék means servant, unfortunate children who end up as slaves when their families can't care for them. Farmed out to wealthy families to work, they suffer physical, mental, and emotional abuses.

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Born in Port-au-Prince on the last day of December 1956, Lyonel Trouillot grew up with an interest in literature. From a family of lawyers, Trouillot began following the prescribed route early on and studied law until his love of the written word won out and he started writing seriously.

He was forced to leave Haiti in the 1980's due to the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier and he ran to America. Having not lost his love of writing, Trouillot continued to write for magazines, newspapers and other publications as he'd done in Haiti, and also across the Diaspora. He created essays, novels, poems, and even song lyrics in the case of songs by artists such as Jean Coulanges, Manno Charlemagne, Atis Endepandan and Tambou Libète.

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Haiti's most famously remembered, celebrated and praised writers seemed to all tend towards not just the literary arts, but a decidedly political activism. Whether it is the art which inspired the politics or the politics which gave way to the great art, in the case of the writings of Rene Depestre, both appear hand-in-hand, twain catalysts which drove him to create essays, novels, short stories and his famous poetry.

Rene Depestre was born in Jacmel on August 29, 1926, but, when his father died ten years later, he went to Port-au-Prince to live with his grandmother. The nostalgia of leaving his remaining family would later greatly influence his work. His debut poetry collection, entitled, 'Étincelles' was published in 1945. Just shy of 20 years old he also co-founded a magazine which would later have the distinction of having an edition seized by the government in their first year for the homage paid to Breton.

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The list of ordinary men, not kings or presidents or any other in an official capacity, who have influenced true and lasting forward movement in their home countries, is a short one. The list of Haitian writers who have created a legacy of literary, social and political worth is shorter still. The efforts of one such ordinary Haitian writer puts him at the pinnacle of both lists and elevates him from an ordinary Haitian writer to a legend of extraordinary significance to Haiti, it's Diaspora and many other countries in the world.

Morisseau-Leroy lived a long life from 1912 to 1998. At the beginning, his upbringing in a prosperous mulatto family saw him well-educated and fluent in French and English. His lucky, unchallenged existence was soon broadened by the addition of a wife, whom he credited as his muse, who famously admired his horsemanship, and would later give him three children.

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"I am this: this earth here, and I have it in my blood. Look at my color; it seems as though the earth faded onto me and onto you too."

Jacques Roumain, like many of history's other literary giants, lived a short life but managed to leave such brilliant words behind they would be spoken for centuries following his death. Through his poems he opened up a colorful, complex world that harkened to the struggles of his contemporaries and has given fodder for great new works by those he inspired and homage-paying re-enactments in the present.

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Jacques-Stephen Alexis was born in 1922 with literary blood already in his veins courtesy of his writer father, Stephen Alexis. His upbringing in Haiti and the influence of other prolific Haitian writers, like Jacques Roumain before him, molded Alexis into one of the country's most well loved writers.

Though he'd completed his schooling in medicine, writing had remained a passion and he gained early recognition on his first piece, an essay on the poet, Hamilton Garoute. This early success was soon followed by his work with La Ruche and then by a string of novels which tended towards the heavy narrative telling of the Haitian city-dwelling peasant.

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