Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature
Abstract
Both born in Port-au-Prince in 1953, the capital of a half-island prone to natural disasters and marked by lasting international isolation, the writers Dany Laferrière and Yanick Lahens have drawn mirrored narrative modes from the fortunes and misfortunes of the Haitian insularity. We will first discuss the chiasmus that can be noted between Douces déroutes (2018) by Yanick Lahens, who has never left her country, and Chronique de la dérive douce (1994) by Dany Laferrière who was deeply marked by his departure for Montreal in 1976. If they are both keen to depict the extreme vulnerability of the social tissue, the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010 inspired them with two antithetical narrative frescoes on the resistance of the Haitian people. While Dany Laferrière rejoices in Tout bouge autour de moi (2011) for the admiration inspired worldwide by the victims' resistance - linked to a vital force which he compares to that of the Haitian primitive painters in the face of desolation -, in Failles (2010), Yanick Lahens tends to deconstruct the ideology that underlies the congratulations addressed to the country for its ''formidable" capacity for resilience.
Recommended Citation
Désorbay, Bernadette
(2020)
"Résistances et vulnérabilités d'une île. Dany Laferrière et Yanick Lahens entre dérive douce et douces déroutes,"
Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature: Vol. 94:
No.
1, Article 11.
Available at:
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/pf/vol94/iss1/11