Haiti Noir

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of twelve novels and two story collections. In 2002, his novel Doctor Sleep was adapted as a film, Close Your Eyes. Bell’s eighth novel, All Souls’ Rising, the first volume in his Haitian Revolution trilogy, was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award. Toussaint Louverture: A Biography appeared in 2007. Since 1984 he has taught at Goucher College, along with his wife, the poet Elizabeth Spires. He lives in Baltimore.

Marie Lily Cerat is an educator and writer, and cofounder of the group Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees. Cerat has published a West African folktale in 1997; a commentary for NPR as part of the 2001 Conference on Racism in South Africa; and two essays in the Ten Speed Press book Vodou: Visions and Voices of Haiti. She is a contributor to Haiti Liberté and at work on a novel, In the Light of Shooting Stars.

Louis-Philippe Dalembert is a novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist born in Port-au-Prince. His books have been awarded the Villa Médicis and Casa de las Américas prizes, and he has been honored with grants from DAAD in Germany and UNESCO-Aschberg in Israel. Since his departure from Haiti in 1986, Dalembert has lived in many cities, including Paris, Rome, Port-au-Prince again, Jerusalem, and Florence. He now lives in Berlin.

Rodney Saint-Éloi was born in Cavaillon, Haiti. He is a poet and memoirist, as well as the founder of Memoire d’encrier, a Montreal-based publishing house. His poetry collections include Graffiti pour l’aurore (Graffiti for the Dawn), Pierre anonymes (Anonymous Stones), and J’ai un arbre dans ma pirogue (I Have a Tree in My Canoe). His memoir on the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Goudougoudou, was published in France in the fall of 2010.

M.J. Fievre’s short stories and poems have appeared in P’an Ku, The Mom Egg, Healthy Stories, Writer’s Digest, Caribbean Writer, Pocket Smut, and 365 Days of Flash Fiction. She is a regular contributor to the online publication the Nervous Breakdown and a contributing editor for Vis.A.Vis magazine. She is the founding editor of Sliver of Stone magazine.

Mark Kurlansky has written twenty books of fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, and has translated a novel by Emile Zola. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, Salt: A World History, and Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea are among his best-known books. As a newspaper reporter, he covered Haiti and the Caribbean for eight years, and he continues to write on Caribbean themes.

Josaphat-Robert Large was born in Haiti in 1942 and moved to the United States in 1963 during the Duvalier dictatorship. He then studied English at Columbia University. A poet and novelist, he writes in French, Creole, and English. He is the author of five novels and four collections of poems. His novel Les terres entourées de larmes (Paris, 2002), was awarded the Grand Literary Prize of the French Caribbean in 2003.

Kettly Mars was born in Port-au-Prince in 1958, and she started writing at the beginning of the 1990s. Since then, she has won two literary prizes and her work has been translated into English, Italian, Dutch, German, and Japanese. She is a member of the Prix Littéraire Henri Deschamps.

Nadine Pinede is a graduate of Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. She earned her PhD at Indiana University and is an Elizabeth George Foundation Scholar at the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sampsonia Way, Radcliffe Quarterly, Literary Newsmakers, The Other Journal, A Lime Jewel, and Soundings Review. She is working on a novel.

Patrick Sylvain is a poet, writer, photographer, and social critic. He works as a Haitian-language and -culture instructor at Brown University. He has been published in numerous anthologies and journals, and his work was recently featured on PBS Newshour as well as on NPR’s Here and Now. His bilingual poetry collection, Love, Lust & Loss, was published in 2005 by Mémoire D’Encrier.

Marie Ketsia Theodore-Pharel was born in Port-au-Prince and now lives in Homestead, Florida, with her family. Her writing has appeared in Compost Magazine, Onyx, African Homefront, and in the United States, edited by Edwidge Danticat.

Evelyne Trouillot was born, lives, and works in Port-au-Prince. Her first novel, Rosalie l’infâme, was awarded the Prix Soroptimist de la romancière francophone in 2004. She has published three more novels, three collections of short novels, and two books of poetry—one in Creole and one in French. Her latest novel is La mémoire aux abois. Her work has been translated into German, Italian, and English. She has also written for theater.

Katia D. Ulysse is a fiction writer, born in Haiti. Her short stories, essays, and Pushcart Prize–nominated poetry appear in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including: The Caribbean Writer, Smartish Pace, Phoebe, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism; Mozayik, The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, and Haiti Noir, edited by Edwidge Danticat. She has taught in Baltimore public schools for thirteen years, and served as Goucher College's Spring 2017 Kratz Writer in Residence. Drifting, a collection of short stories, drew high praise from literary critics. She is currently at work on another short story collection. Mouths Don't Speak is her latest novel.

Gary Victor was born in Port-au-Prince in 1958. He is a longtime contributor to Le Nouvelliste, Haiti’s best-known daily newspaper. He began his career by writing fiction for young adults in the youth edition of the newspaper. He has published nine collections of short stories and twelve novels, including Saison de porcs (Pork Season) and Le cercle des époux infidels, (The Adulterer’s Circle). He has also written for theater, television, and cinema.

Marvin Victor was born in Port-au-Prince in December 1981. He is a painter and filmmaker. In 2007, he won the Young Francophone Writer Prize in France.

Ibi Aanu Zoboi was born in Port-au-Prince as Pascale Philantrope. Her writing can be found on the web, in literary journals, and anthologies including the award-winning Dark Matter: Reading the Bones. She is a recipient of a grant in literature and writing from the Brooklyn Arts Council for the Daughters of Anacaona Writing Project, a program for Haitian teen girls, and she has completed a young adult fantasy/science-fiction novel based on Haitian mythology. She lives in Brooklyn.