Fictions of Displacement: Locating Modern Haitian Narratives

This article challenges the notion of Haitian cultural exceptionalism, and the ways in which in the postindigenist era the peasant novel in general and Jacques Roumain's Gouverneurs de la rosee in particular became yardsticks for judging Haitian writing. Evoking contemporary narratives of exile and return, the article argues that authors such as Dany Laferriere and Edwidge Danticat offer post-territorial understandings of culture and nation.