About this item
Highlights
- I Am Alive (Je suis vivant) is celebrated Haitian author Kettly Mars's latest novel, telling the story of a bourgeois Caribbean family as it wrestles with issues of mental illness, unconventional sexuality, and the difficulty of returning home and rediscovery following the devastating 2010 earthquake.
- About the Author: Kettly Mars is an award-winning writer and poet from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the author of Savage Seasons.
- 150 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Literary
- Series Name: Caraf Books
Description
About the Book
"Explores the deep-seated trauma and the suppressed memories of a middle-class Haitian family when their eldest son, Alexandre, must return to the family hearth after his mental institution closes in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti"--Book Synopsis
I Am Alive (Je suis vivant) is celebrated Haitian author Kettly Mars's latest novel, telling the story of a bourgeois Caribbean family as it wrestles with issues of mental illness, unconventional sexuality, and the difficulty of returning home and rediscovery following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Mars, herself a survivor of the disaster, has crafted a complex, at times disorienting, but ultimately enthralling and powerfully evocative work of literature that adds to her reputation as one of the leading voices of the francophone world.
When the mental health facility where he has been living for decades is severely damaged, Alexandre Bernier must return home to Fleur-de-Chêne. His sister Marylène has also come home, leaving behind a flourishing career as a painter in Brussels, and begins to explore her sexuality with her artist's model Norah, who poses for her in secret. These homecomings are both a lift and a burden to the family matriarch, Éliane, a steadfast and resourceful widow. Over the course of the novel, past and present blend together as each character has an opportunity to narrate the story from their own perspective. In the end, it is the resilience of the Haitian people that allows them to navigate the seismic shifts in their family and in the land.
Review Quotes
Returning to the post-quake timeline used in Aux frontières de la soif (2013), Mars creates another narrative decidedly linked to the 2010 Haitian earthquake... Her choice to describe the edges of the tragedy rather than crafting a novel based solely on the horrific physical event is deceptively powerful. By targeting fringe circumstances such as sibling rivalry and family hierarchy, Mars ensures that the reader is pulled into a personalized version of the earthquake perhaps on an even more impactful, relatable level... The labyrinthian narrative structure chosen by Mars develops in such a way as to mirror the dizzying aftereffects of the quake, one from which its characters and the reader cannot escape.
--French ReviewThe book's premise speaks to the current context of Haiti's fissured political foundation; the breakdown of the social fabric. The specter of cholera is a contemporary consequence of failed international intervention, which we see resurging right now.
--Myriam J.A. Chancy, Scripps CollegeDize's translation helps recreate a transnational space of kinship and solidarity for the Haitian community through careful attention to the innermost recesses of Mars's original text.--Reading in Translation
About the Author
Kettly Mars is an award-winning writer and poet from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the author of Savage Seasons.
Nathan H. Dize is Visiting Assistant Professor of French at Oberlin College.