Welcome to Litsy!

Reading this book about the same time i read Gay‘s Hunger, it is obvious it is partly autobiographical. Gay and the protagonist suffered much the same trauma and the recovery was/is a journey of a lifetime. They have similar internal dialogue, the disturbed response to people trying to help them, the revulsion of being touched. Gay‘s family was from Haiti, so there‘s that connection, too. There‘s the inability to forgive and the desire to know ⬇️

Next up, a poetry collection by a Canadian author of Haitian descent, using zombie folklore as a metaphor for slavery, being Black in a White-dominated world, immigration narratives, generational trauma, and healing, the book's title being the traditional remedy for zombiïsm.
🇭🇹 #Haiti 🇨🇦 #Canada

I‘m starting this book today, my second book for #authorabook this month. @Soubhiville

These short stories about women in Haiti or its diaspora are painful and poignant, sometimes hopeful and sometimes despairingly sad. Some feel so real I thought they were autobiographical. They are not but I felt I learned so much about the author from reading them. This is the first I‘ve read by Gay and it was so good. I look forward to reading another one by her. Having just finished a book of short stories about Nepal, with what I felt were ⬇️

“She has been dying for nearly twenty years…” 🤣

#authoramonth @Soubhiville

@Soubhiville I‘m starting my first read for #authoramonth this month.

#25Alive #Memory

This was my first graphic novel, and I found it fascinating. The graphic format made it easy to understand Haiti's very complicated, sad, and violent history. I will read more of this series.

This is a haunting recollection of the earthquake that shook Haiti in 2010. Each chapter tells the story of someone affected by the tragedy; lives and relationships intertwined in one way or another. Almost 300,000 people lost their lives and 1.5 million were left homeless.
This is an important piece of literature and I‘m glad it was chosen as our One Maryland One Book this year, though it was heartbreaking and tough to get through.

Beautiful, devastating, and so so much more. There's a lot of trauma packed in this one. Many scenes that seemed so light—some made me think it's going for a happy or hopeful resolution—are revealed to be horrifying by a simple yet gut-punching line. Definitely not for the softhearted. I took plenty of breaks but I still couldn't stop my tears near the end.

Ou libéré?