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Chapter 4 - Haiti in the Latinx Literary Imaginary

from Part I - Shifting Coordinates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2025

By
John D. Ribó
Edited by
William Orchard
William Orchard
Affiliation:
Queens College, CUNY
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Summary

This chapter links Haiti’s ambivalent place in the Latinx literary imaginary to deep-seated anxieties about race, nation, and belonging entangled in representations of Haiti since the Haitian Revolution and the formation of the Latinx literary canon. It argues that in last thirty years the historical exclusion of Haitian American literature from the Latinx literary canon has come increasingly under pressure due to shifting terminology, the broad turn toward recuperating legacies of the Haitian revolution across academic disciplines, and the institutionalization of Dominican American Studies in the United States. The chapter concludes with close readings of Julia Alvarez’s memoir A Wedding in Haiti (2012), Félix Morisseau-Leroy’s poem “Tourist,” and Loida Maritza Pérez’s novel Geographies of Home (2000) to illustrate both the possible pitfalls and promising potential of transnational approaches linking the literatures of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and their diasporas.

Keywords

Haititransnational HispaniolaraceEdwidge DanticatJulia AlvarezLoida Maritza PérezFélix Morisseau-LeroyLatinidad

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Chapter
Information
Latinx Literature in Transition, 1992–2020 , pp. 76 - 95
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

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