Quiet Dawn: A Novel of Haiti by Jean-Claude Fignolé, Kaiama L. Glover (translator), Laurent Dubois (translator) ISBN 9781478031611, 9781478028437, 9781478060642, 1478031611, 1478028432, 1478060646 instant download

Quiet Dawn: A Novel of Haiti by Jean-Claude Fignolé, Kaiama L. Glover (translator), Laurent Dubois (translator) ISBN 9781478031611, 9781478028437, 9781478060642, 1478031611, 1478028432, 1478060646 instant download

Jean-Claude Fignolé’s Quiet Dawn tells an enthralling story of Haiti’s transition from French colony to independent Black republic. The swirling, multilayered novel provides intimate portraits of an eighteenth-century slaveholder, his wife, and their enslaved laborers set against the devastating backdrop of enslavement and revolution. Into this Gothic colonial tale Fignolé interweaves a series of tragic events involving a present-day French nun doing penance for the sins of her ancestors. One of the few contemporary Haitian novels to explicitly grapple with Haiti’s revolution, Quiet Dawn foregrounds issues of race, power, the continuing legacy of historical trauma, and the unresolved tensions between the past and present. Published in French in 1990 and appearing here in English for the first time, Quiet Dawn forcefully pushes against the silencing of Haiti’s past, belying its title to depict a clamorous Atlantic world that comprises Europe, Africa, and the vast expanse of the Americas.

“From a virtuoso of Haitian literature comes this stunning whorl of history, revolution, love, and politics. With vivid authority, Jean-Claude Fignolé offers an intriguing and painful saga of a colonial family moving through history, painting portraits of many of the towering figures from Haiti’s colonial past. He situates a living, pulsing Haiti directly where it should be: at the axis of the twirling vortex of post-seventeenth-century Western history. It’s a pleasure to read this book and a lesson, as well, about how we can interpret the legacy of the crowded Atlantic drama in our day.” - Amy Wilentz, author of Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti

Jean-Claude Fignolé (1941–2017) was a Haitian author, poet, cofounder of Haiti’s Spiralist literary movement, and author of several novels in French.