Place in Haitian Literature Since The 2010 Earthquake

Abstract

Novelists responded immediately to the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. Analysis of key works demonstrates the numerous images and interpretations that the catastrophe has generated among Haitians, and is valuable as a source for indigenous understandings of the altered nature of place in Haiti. Literature offers insight into the Haitian view of the earthquake's effect on gender relations, family structures, urban migration and development, and memory. Literature also participates in the country's reconstruction by articulating the challenges and opportunities faced by Haitian society, and by providing a space for therapeutic self‐expression. In this literature we witness the development of the language, attitudes, emotions, and meanings that are and will be the earthquake's cultural legacy.

• earthquake
• gender
• Haiti
• literature and place
• memory

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Cruse

Mark Cruse is an associate professor of French at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 85287; [[email protected]].