E EA S EL R
THE WORLD IS MOVING AROUND ME A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake
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EW
A moving eyewitness account of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and its aftermath.
On January 12, 2010, novelist Dany Laferrière had just ordered dinner at a Port-au-Prince restaurant with a friend when the earthquake struck. He survived; some 300,000 others did not. The quake caused widespread destruction and left over 1 million homeless; it also revealed flaws in the impoverished nation's infrastructure that will take a generation from which to recover. This moving and revelatory book is an eyewitness account of the quake and its aftermath. In a series of vignettes, Laferrière reveals the shock, rage, and grief experienced by those around him, the acts of heroism he witnessed, and his own sense of survivor guilt. At one point, his nephew, astonished at still being alive, asks his uncle not to write about "this," "this" being too horrible to give up so easily to those who were not there. But as a writer, Laferrière can't make such a promise. Still, the question is raised: to whom does this disaster belong? Who gets to talk and write about it? In this way, the book is not only the chronicle of a natural disaster; it is also a personal meditation on the responsibility and power of the written word in a manner that echoes certain post-Holocaust books.
Dany Laferrière; translated by David Homel Dany Laferrière was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1953. He is the author of fourteen novels, including I Am a Japanese Writer, Heading South, and the award-winning How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired. Laferrière is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Prix Carbet des Lycéens and the Prix Médicis in France, and the Governor General's Literary Award in Canada. He lives in Montreal.
isbn 978-1-55152-498-6
travel (essays & travelogues) /
e-isbn 978-1-55152-499-3
history (caribbean & west indies)
5.5 x 8 | 192 pp | paper
trv010000 / his041000
$15.95 / $15.95 us
pub month: january
spring 2013 page 2