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Memory at Bay
Winner of the prestigious Prix Carbet--an award won by such distinguished authors as Maryse Conde, Jamaica Kincaid, and Raphael Confiant-- Memory at Bay is now available in an English translation that brings to life this powerful novel by one of Haiti's most vital authors, Evelyne Trouillot.
Trouillot introduces us to a bedridden widow of a notorious dictator (in effect, a portrait of Papa Doc Duvalier) and the young emigre who attends to her needs but who harbors a secret--the bitter loss she feels for her mother, a victim of the dictator's atrocities. The story that unfolds is a deftly plotted psychological drama in which the two women in turn relive their radically contrasting accounts of the dictator's regime. Partly a retelling of Haiti's nightmarish history under Duvalier, and partly an exploration of the power of memory, Trouillot's novel takes a suspenseful turn when the aide contemplates murdering the old widow.
Memory at Bay was praised by the Prix Carbet committee for the way it treats the enigmas of destiny and for a pairing of characters whose voices bring the narrative to the edge of the ineffable.
CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French
Trouillot introduces us to a bedridden widow of a notorious dictator (in effect, a portrait of Papa Doc Duvalier) and the young emigre who attends to her needs but who harbors a secret--the bitter loss she feels for her mother, a victim of the dictator's atrocities. The story that unfolds is a deftly plotted psychological drama in which the two women in turn relive their radically contrasting accounts of the dictator's regime. Partly a retelling of Haiti's nightmarish history under Duvalier, and partly an exploration of the power of memory, Trouillot's novel takes a suspenseful turn when the aide contemplates murdering the old widow.
Memory at Bay was praised by the Prix Carbet committee for the way it treats the enigmas of destiny and for a pairing of characters whose voices bring the narrative to the edge of the ineffable.
CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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About the author
Evelyne Trouillot
38 books35 followersEvelyne Trouillot was born, lives and works in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her first novel Rosalie l’infâme was awarded the Prix Soroptimist de la romancière francophone, in Grenoble, France in 2004. Evelyne Trouillot has published several more novels and three collections of short stories, two books of poems, one in Creole and one in French. She has also written an essay on the situation of children and human rights in Haiti Restituer l’enfance. Her first play Le bleu de l’île received the Prix Beaumarchais, ETC Caraibes in 2005. Her novel La mémoire aux abois, presents a compelling view of the dictatorship that Haiti suffered during the Duvalier era. It received the Prix Carbet de la Caraibe et du Tout Monde in 2010. Her latest novel Absences sans frontières tells the story of a family separated by migration, but strengthened by their love and respect for one another. In 2014, Trouillot published a book of poems in France, Par la fissure de mes mots. In 2015, her latest novel Le rond point was awarded la Bourse Barbancourt, in Haiti. La memoire aux abois was translated by Paul C Daw into English under the title Memory at Bay and published by University of Virginia Press in 2015.
Several short stories by Trouillot are available in English, such as http://wordswithoutborders.org/articl....
you can see Evelyne Trouillot interview about le rond point on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak8zW...
You can read Edwidge Danticat's interview with the author at http://www.theroot.com/views/bomb-roo....
Several short stories by Trouillot are available in English, such as http://wordswithoutborders.org/articl....
you can see Evelyne Trouillot interview about le rond point on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak8zW...
You can read Edwidge Danticat's interview with the author at http://www.theroot.com/views/bomb-roo....
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 17, 2016
What a beautifully written novel that is, at last, available in english. The lyrical, alternating voices glide effortlessly. This is a harsh true accounting of the murderous Duvalier tale as roman a clef. I recommend highly.
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March 11, 2016This book was featured in the Nota Benes section of the January/February 2016 issue of World Literature Today Magazine.
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...
February 23, 2019
Very good, if brutally exhausting. Makes me wish I had the original French to compare it to. Also makes me want to pick up a history book about the topic.
December 21, 2021
About the pain and legacy of atrocities in Haiti, Memory at Bay is an important and powerful book written by Haitian writer Evelyne Trouillot who escaped the Duvalier dictatorship in 1971 after finishing high school but now writing and teaching in Port au Prince. Memory at Bay was first published in 2010 in French and the translation by Paul Curtis Daw into English came out in 2015.
The story is told by the widow of Duvalier and her young caretaker whose mother’s sufferings under the regime are the core of her identity. The alternating voices provide a picture from two different points of view—a dying 80 year-old woman defending her husband’s vicious acts, the former regime, and a young woman who only experienced the Haitian terror from stories and from internalizing her mother’s fate.
With the excellent afterward by Jason Herbeck, we get a brief history of the terrible dictatorship in Haiti in which not only people suffered brutally and more than a million fled, but in which literature and books were destroyed and families of writers and journalists were killed simply for being related to them. What we are left with for the most part after the Duvalier regime is memory, the memory and stories.
“Are we prisoners of our memory or is memory instead beholden to our weaknesses and hidden wounds? Can our memories still flow freely when our scars accumulate and surround them like a gory ring of barbed wire?”
The story is told by the widow of Duvalier and her young caretaker whose mother’s sufferings under the regime are the core of her identity. The alternating voices provide a picture from two different points of view—a dying 80 year-old woman defending her husband’s vicious acts, the former regime, and a young woman who only experienced the Haitian terror from stories and from internalizing her mother’s fate.
With the excellent afterward by Jason Herbeck, we get a brief history of the terrible dictatorship in Haiti in which not only people suffered brutally and more than a million fled, but in which literature and books were destroyed and families of writers and journalists were killed simply for being related to them. What we are left with for the most part after the Duvalier regime is memory, the memory and stories.
“Are we prisoners of our memory or is memory instead beholden to our weaknesses and hidden wounds? Can our memories still flow freely when our scars accumulate and surround them like a gory ring of barbed wire?”
June 4, 2022
It took me soooo long to get through this book. I just didn't ever want to pick it up for some reason. I have been so interested in Haiti and Haitian history since learning a little about their revolution in "Born in Blackness", and I thought the idea of the relationship between the two women (Papa Doc's widow and the daughter of a Haitian who had been victimized by the regime) was really interesting. Maybe the stream of consciousness memories just kept me at a distance from the characters? Too much telling, not enough doing? It did make me want to find out more about the Duvalier regime.
August 13, 2021
Penetrating exploration of authoritarianism's effects on humanity. The pain of remembering.
August 13, 2019
Update August 2019:
Laënnc Huron is a founding member of Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince. He’s published on Haitian vodou. Is the author also a founder? Or have ties? What’s the origin of “Quisqueya”?
It took a while to see the rhyme & reason. While the anecdotes the dictator’s wife & the nurse shared but the last 30 pages made it clearer. You know the nurse’s family, like most Haitians (Quisquéyans) have been impacted by the dictatorship’s violence, but it’s not clear how the 2 are connected.
The alternating perspectives give a good sense of two key groups of people in Haiti, the wealthy mulatto elite and the working class. They illustrate what it’s like to seek marriage and children against the backdrop.
It was fascinating to see that the country is clearly meant to be Haiti, but Trouillot doesn’t call it that. When it so clearly is, what is gained from not? (5/28/19 update I just learned the term for this kind of novel is "roman à clef" where real people or events appear with invented names.)
The clearest theme is the idea that trauma can be transmitted to one’s loved ones which means Haitians have a long road ahead of them.
Laënnc Huron is a founding member of Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince. He’s published on Haitian vodou. Is the author also a founder? Or have ties? What’s the origin of “Quisqueya”?
It took a while to see the rhyme & reason. While the anecdotes the dictator’s wife & the nurse shared but the last 30 pages made it clearer. You know the nurse’s family, like most Haitians (Quisquéyans) have been impacted by the dictatorship’s violence, but it’s not clear how the 2 are connected.
The alternating perspectives give a good sense of two key groups of people in Haiti, the wealthy mulatto elite and the working class. They illustrate what it’s like to seek marriage and children against the backdrop.
It was fascinating to see that the country is clearly meant to be Haiti, but Trouillot doesn’t call it that. When it so clearly is, what is gained from not? (5/28/19 update I just learned the term for this kind of novel is "roman à clef" where real people or events appear with invented names.)
The clearest theme is the idea that trauma can be transmitted to one’s loved ones which means Haitians have a long road ahead of them.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews