Ecrire en pays assiege Haiti: Writing Under Siege.(Book Review)

Ecrire en pays assiege; Haiti: Writing under Siege ED. MARIE-AGNES SOURIEAU AND KATHLEEN BALUTANSKY Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2004. ISBN 90-420-1753-8 paper.

Jorge Luis Borges once made the seemingly outrageous declaration that censorship might be good for literature because it impelled writers to use procedures that were metaphorical and indirect. (1) His provoking formulation was meant to draw attention to the fact that for him the language of literature should at the very least be suggestive and even enigmatic. Often, under dictatorships, it is only practitioners of such camouflaged writing who have the slightest hope of surviving. However, for those who wish for a more immediate, engaged role for the writer an excessive concern with craft erodes the moral validity of literature in times of political crisis. You could say that the idea that drives the collection of essays Ecrire en pays assiege is precisely the fate of Haitian literature under …