Writing/Righting History, Singing history

Marie Helene Laforest (University of Naples, “L’Orientale”)

In a country like Haiti, with a high illiteracy rate, songs have played a significant role in its political history. Throughout the twentieth century major events in the country were recorded in songs up until the election of François Duvalier in 1957 whose rule of terror censored all means of expression. The lyrics of these songs expressed the people’s opinions when they took to the streets to either praise a leader or disparage him, to demand changes or to comment on an individual’s behaviour. The songs are joyful, angry, bitter, ironic and often make use of double entendre. This is part of a larger project to trace a history of Haiti from 1900 to 1957 through the political songs which were popular in those years. The project aims at confronting the official recording of history with these popular expressions of assent and dissent.

Marie Helene Laforest - University of Naples, “L’Orientale”

Marie-Hélène Laforest is a writer and professor of postcolonial literatures at the University of Naples “L’ Orientale”. She has written extensively on interculturality, hybrid identities, racial and gender issues, and the African diaspora. She is the author of two books of non-fiction, Diasporic Encounters. Remapping the Caribbean (2000) and La magia delle parole. Omeros di Derek Walcott (2007). A James Michener fellow and a John Simmons Short Fiction Award semi-finalist, she has also published a collection of short stories entitled Foreign Shores.