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Cécé
“The best book on Haiti in a very long time . . . powerful, spot on, likely the best written.” —Dany Laferrière
An astonishing novel of raw beauty about gang life, sex work, and social media in Haiti
Cécé La Flamme, as she’s known by her loyal Facebook friends, captures photographs of still bodies. Figures scorched and bruised, left to the rubble of the Cité of Divine Power. When she posts an image of a corpse, Cécé’s followers skyrocket. “Nothing got more attention than a good corpse that was nice and warm or already rotting.” Just beside visions of rot and neglect, she posts pictures of her toes, gullies crisscrossing the cité, and her own lips painted blue. With every image, Cécé seeks control and wants to create a frank, intimate record of the terror in her cité.
Cécé’s world begins and ends with the cité – a slum peopled by gangs, yelping kids, grandmothers, junkies, and preachers. The very gate that encloses the cité was constructed by militant gang members. First boss Freddy, then Joël, then Jules César rule the gang that holds the cité in a chokehold. Sharp, sincere, and desperate, Cécé cleaves life for herself out of social media, sex work, and attempts at friendship with other women. When an American journalist offers to buy the rights to Cécé’s photographs, she demands double the cash. When an abusive former client dies, she wears hot pink to his funeral. Emmelie Prophète’s novel is fierce, devastating, and suggestive – a record of a woman clawing back control.
An astonishing novel of raw beauty about gang life, sex work, and social media in Haiti
Cécé La Flamme, as she’s known by her loyal Facebook friends, captures photographs of still bodies. Figures scorched and bruised, left to the rubble of the Cité of Divine Power. When she posts an image of a corpse, Cécé’s followers skyrocket. “Nothing got more attention than a good corpse that was nice and warm or already rotting.” Just beside visions of rot and neglect, she posts pictures of her toes, gullies crisscrossing the cité, and her own lips painted blue. With every image, Cécé seeks control and wants to create a frank, intimate record of the terror in her cité.
Cécé’s world begins and ends with the cité – a slum peopled by gangs, yelping kids, grandmothers, junkies, and preachers. The very gate that encloses the cité was constructed by militant gang members. First boss Freddy, then Joël, then Jules César rule the gang that holds the cité in a chokehold. Sharp, sincere, and desperate, Cécé cleaves life for herself out of social media, sex work, and attempts at friendship with other women. When an American journalist offers to buy the rights to Cécé’s photographs, she demands double the cash. When an abusive former client dies, she wears hot pink to his funeral. Emmelie Prophète’s novel is fierce, devastating, and suggestive – a record of a woman clawing back control.
223 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 23, 2025
9 people are currently reading
455 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 12, 2025
**4.5 stars
Very very heart wrenching read about the experiences of growing up in Haiti and the violence that is endemic , both through gang warfare and poverty and the impacts of it all on all of the people that live in the cité ; the violence is cyclical and ruthless and endless, touching every corner and aspect of life and the protagonist Cece and the other characters are never given a rest from it
One very unique aspect of the book was the detailed and descriptive way that prophète describes the cité that involves all of the senses - the smells, the sounds etc ; it paints a very visceral picture for the reader
Very very heart wrenching read about the experiences of growing up in Haiti and the violence that is endemic , both through gang warfare and poverty and the impacts of it all on all of the people that live in the cité ; the violence is cyclical and ruthless and endless, touching every corner and aspect of life and the protagonist Cece and the other characters are never given a rest from it
One very unique aspect of the book was the detailed and descriptive way that prophète describes the cité that involves all of the senses - the smells, the sounds etc ; it paints a very visceral picture for the reader
November 17, 2025
Cécé by Emmelie Prophète trans. by Aidan Rooney
In 'Blue', Prophète’s earlier & my all time favorite work, she says
"How do you tell a story you don’t know? I, who have always kept my history separate, convinced that life is short and that each person must tell their own story—I will have to tell one now. I must tell it, tell it to the end. Their past, their history, their future stayed on their hands,..."
and once again how beautifully she has written. A book about grim mundanities of Cité of Divine Power, a neighborhood in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. A place that is anything but divine
Marred with gang violence & extreme poverty, it's "a very ordinary story" of a courageous girl Cécé
"The first time I ever saw white people was at the church. Lots would come wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “Hearts for Haiti” or “Ohio loves Haiti.” They always seemed happy in our sorry country. We helped give a little meaning to their lives, and they brought us charity they’d collected on our behalf from their fellow countrymen. They offered us lots of prayers, all the while hoping that nothing would change for us so that there would be no shortage of good missions for years to come.."
-Cécé is about a girl who never saw her junkie mother & was raised by another courageous woman- her grandmother
- It's about a teenager who is a victim of wrong choices
- It's about a woman who carves her way out of exploitation & finds respectable ways of survival
But nothing comes easy in this hell hole. You need to close your eyes to injustice, make friends with enemies, bow down to insane raw power & find ways to fight
Although I wish Cécé had not made some easy choices but we also need to understand how her decisions are influenced by what she sees around
Author has very creatively included the elements of present day craze about social media & its influence & how Cécé uses it
Translation is brilliantly done
This one has been nominated for @cercadorprize & while it's a worthy longlisted book, I wish it had a storyline not just reflections to propel it further. It definitely has a brilliant commentary on scars left by colonialism though
Read it
In 'Blue', Prophète’s earlier & my all time favorite work, she says
"How do you tell a story you don’t know? I, who have always kept my history separate, convinced that life is short and that each person must tell their own story—I will have to tell one now. I must tell it, tell it to the end. Their past, their history, their future stayed on their hands,..."
and once again how beautifully she has written. A book about grim mundanities of Cité of Divine Power, a neighborhood in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. A place that is anything but divine
Marred with gang violence & extreme poverty, it's "a very ordinary story" of a courageous girl Cécé
"The first time I ever saw white people was at the church. Lots would come wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “Hearts for Haiti” or “Ohio loves Haiti.” They always seemed happy in our sorry country. We helped give a little meaning to their lives, and they brought us charity they’d collected on our behalf from their fellow countrymen. They offered us lots of prayers, all the while hoping that nothing would change for us so that there would be no shortage of good missions for years to come.."
-Cécé is about a girl who never saw her junkie mother & was raised by another courageous woman- her grandmother
- It's about a teenager who is a victim of wrong choices
- It's about a woman who carves her way out of exploitation & finds respectable ways of survival
But nothing comes easy in this hell hole. You need to close your eyes to injustice, make friends with enemies, bow down to insane raw power & find ways to fight
Although I wish Cécé had not made some easy choices but we also need to understand how her decisions are influenced by what she sees around
Author has very creatively included the elements of present day craze about social media & its influence & how Cécé uses it
Translation is brilliantly done
This one has been nominated for @cercadorprize & while it's a worthy longlisted book, I wish it had a storyline not just reflections to propel it further. It definitely has a brilliant commentary on scars left by colonialism though
Read it
September 25, 2025
an extraordinary, poetic book
This is just an extraordinary, poetic book that lets the reader see the protagonist’s life through her eyes—and tells us a lot about our own need as human beings to be seen and heard.
This is just an extraordinary, poetic book that lets the reader see the protagonist’s life through her eyes—and tells us a lot about our own need as human beings to be seen and heard.
October 9, 2025
This book probably had one of the best concluding paragraphs that I have ever read.
October 29, 2025
This is a masterpiece. But very sad.
November 28, 2025
Were those soldiers baking in the heat even alive, with nothing to their names but the hour that had just gone by? The police wouldn't come. They all knew it. The policemen who lived in the Cité of course did too. There was nothing to report. A popular song was playing on a nearby radio. Everything was broken beyond hope.
Cécé lives in a slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with her grandmother and uncle, until her grandmother dies and it's up to Cécé to support both her and her uncle. And so she sells just enough of herself to keep them going and finds refuge from the poverty and violence in social media, which may just become the thing that allows her to stand on her own feet.
This could be a very grim story, and it is. The conditions of the poverty Cécé lives with and the violence that exists alongside that poverty are horrific, but Cécé, despite her access to the curated lives of Facebook and instagram, isn't filled with self-pity. And she cares about the people around her, from her uncle, broken by his experiences in the US, to the girlfriend of a murdered gang leader. This is an excellent novel set in a place too rarely written about, I hope it finds a wide readership.
Cécé lives in a slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with her grandmother and uncle, until her grandmother dies and it's up to Cécé to support both her and her uncle. And so she sells just enough of herself to keep them going and finds refuge from the poverty and violence in social media, which may just become the thing that allows her to stand on her own feet.
This could be a very grim story, and it is. The conditions of the poverty Cécé lives with and the violence that exists alongside that poverty are horrific, but Cécé, despite her access to the curated lives of Facebook and instagram, isn't filled with self-pity. And she cares about the people around her, from her uncle, broken by his experiences in the US, to the girlfriend of a murdered gang leader. This is an excellent novel set in a place too rarely written about, I hope it finds a wide readership.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews