From Dessalines' Sword to Laferrière's Pen

Dany Laferrière has become, despite himself, a burning sun that shines everywhere on the planet, even in the darkest areas created by our former colonizers to suffocate our history. He is a living monument of our cultural heritage. He has entered universal history through the grand door; the one reserved for liberators of consciousness. There must be the loudest noise, the greatest media uproar around his name. The clamor of his triumph must resonate in every alley of Port-au-Prince, in every public square of Cap-Haïtien, and all the way to the waves of his native Petit-Goâve. He has performed a heroic act comparable to the bravery of the Grenadiers of 1803. Where Dessalines wielded the sword to cut the chains of physical slavery, Dany Laferrière has wielded the pen to break the mental blockade imposed on our people.

He did not slip under the dome through a hidden door, but by holding high the identity, the sufferings, the laughter, and the dignity of the entire Haitian people. By refusing to smooth out his accent, by imposing our magical and tragic realities at the heart of the most conservative of Western institutions, he has accomplished a memorial heist of invaluable worth. We must carry his name as a banner of victory!

Let the Haitian youth understand that this man has, in one fell swoop, washed away more than two centuries of affronts. He has proven that Black genius does not need to beg for recognition; it imposes itself by its own light. He has brought the homeland into universal immortality, and for this, the Nation owes him eternal gratitude, a deafening tribute.