Jean Jonassaint, Des romans de tradition haïtienne. Sur un récit tragique Paris and Montréal, L'Harmattan <www.editions-harmattan.fr> and Cidihca <www.cidihca.com>, 2002, 369 pp. (with index and bibliography). 27 . ISBN 2-7475-1672
A century after the publication in Paris of the first novel considered as truly Haitian, Thémistocle-Épaminondas Labasterre by Frédéric Marcelin (1848-1917), Editions L'Harmattan (Paris) and Editions du CIDIHCA (Montreal) proudly announce the publication of a seminal study of this Haitian genre, Des romans de tradition haïtienne, sur un récit tragique, by Jean Jonassaint. In this volume, the author examines a counter-exemplary narrative tradition of fatal loss that recalls the tragic history of Haiti, beginning with the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the founder of the Haitian nation, at Pont-Rouge in 1806. Des romans de tradition haïtienne is composed of two separate, but related works. The first is a systematic study of one of the first and most important francophone corpi of the Americas, the novel of the Haitian tradition (1901-1961). In a comparative perspective, drawing from Greek tragedy and the tradition of Haitian "orature", Jonassaint shows how the novels of Haitian tradition differ not only from those of Haitian modernity but also from comparative francophone examples, such as those of the Caribbean novelists, Edouard Glissant and Joseph Zobel.
The second is an anthology of primary texts, in French: selected excerpts from the original classics, collected in one volume for the pleasure of reading or re-reading the great prose narratives of these innovative Haitian writers: Jacques-Stephen Alexis, Jean-Baptiste Cinéas, Fernand Hibbert, Antoine Innocent, Anthony Lespès, Justin Lhérisson, Frédéric Marcelin, Pierre Marcelin, Jacques Roumain, and Philippe Thoby-Marcelin.
Commenting on this new study, the critic Henri Mitterand writes: "I admired both Jonassaint's erudition (which shows the extraordinary richness of Haitian literature), and his use of the analytical models of modern criticism."
Jean Jonassaint (jean.jonassaint@duke.edu) is a professor of francophone literatures in the Romance Studies Department of Duke University <www.duke.edu/web/romance> and serves on the editorial board of the journals Études francophones <www.ucs.louisiana.edu/cief/edit.html> and Nepantla: Views from South <www.duke.edu/web/las/Nepantla>. He is former editor of the intercultural and interdisciplinary French-Canadian journal, Dérives (1975-1988), and was Senior lecturer in the Department of Literary Studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal (1978-1996) and cultural adviser of the City of Montreal (1988-1995). He is the author of La Déchirure du (corps)texte et autres brèches (1984), Le Pouvoir des mots, les maux du pouvoir: Des romanciers haïtiens de l'exil (1986), and of numerous articles focusing particularly on Francophone literature.