TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE: A Biography
By Madison Smartt Bell (Pantheon, 2007)
Bell, the acclaimed author of a trilogy of novels about the Haitian revolution of 1791-1803, produces a biography of its charismatic central figure, the myths and realities of his life and his titanic battle with another self-made man, Napoleon.
AN AROMA OF COFFEE
By Dany Laferrière, translated by David Homel (Coach House, 1993)
A novel by a Haiti-born Montrealer about a summer in the life of a 10-year-old Haitian boy.
TELL MY HORSE
By Zora Neale Hurston (Harper Perennial, 2009)
An anthropological account of her field work on ritual in Jamaica and Haiti(especially voodoo) in the 1930s by an eminent writer of the Harlem Renaissance.
THE COMEDIANS
By Graham Greene (Bodley Head, 1966)
A jaded white hotel owner watches Haiti descend into chaos under the barbaric regime of “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his secret police, the dreaded Tonton Macoute.
VOODOO FIRE IN HAITI
By Richard A. Loederer (Pelican, 2005)
Originally published in 1932, this account of vanishing African traditions in Haiti gets added appeal from its German artist-writer's art deco woodcuts.
A DAY FOR THE HUNTER, A DAY FOR THE PREY: Popular Music and Power in Haiti
By Gage Averill (University of Chicago, 1997)
A look at Haitian resistance to colonialism and repression through music and the interaction of music with power.
