Haiti

Haiti PDF Author: Herbert Gold
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 141282494X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
"In the course of an impressive career as a writer, Herbert Gold has demonstrated many gifts, among them his talent for making high drama of ordinary events, ordinary people."-Chicago Tribune Book World "Goldhas a sharp eye for detail."-The Washington Times Magazine "Not just a good book, but a great one."-London Daily Mail "Herbert Goldgives his stories a wry, bright air of wonderhe is a born storyteller."-New York Times "One of the most gifted writers in America."-Detroit News Five decades ago, award-winning author Herbert Gold traveled to Haiti on a Caribbean version of the Fulbright Scholarship. The journey proved to be a turning point in his life. Fifty years later, his attachment to the tiny Caribbean nation-his second home-remains as passionate and powerful as ever. Now, in Best Nightmare on Earth, he explores the secret life of this vibrant, volatile, violent land. "Beautifulbizarredangerousexotic, a Garden of Eden fallen into despair, a tiny nation of unimaginable misery and unpredictable grace, an island where life is a kind of literature, a world of "unlimited impossibility." This is Herbert Gold's Haiti, a country of extraordinary paradox and remarkable extremes-of gingerbread dream houses and wretched slums, of brutal repression and explosive creative energy. Where else, he asks, can you run into evil spirits on the back roads, or find the goddess of fertility and orgasm represented by a photo of a tap-dancing Shirley Temple? Where else is there such generosity amid such corruption, such humor in the midst of such desperation? In his many Haitian travels, Gold has dined with Graham Greene and chatted with the hated Duvalier oppressors. He has traded stories with CIA saboteurs, former Nazis, rum-soaked diplomats, and voodoo priests. He has taken in the cockfights and hunted for pirate treasure. He has nearly died of malaria; he has faced machete-wielding gangs of Ton-Ton Macoutes. He followed the traffic in Haitian blood to American hospitals and watched the AIDS epidemic take its toll. He listened to the steady beat of drums rolling down mist-shrouded mountains, and shared in the flirting, drinking, and laughter of the streets. He has captured the essence of this land where tragedy is the music the people dance to. Herbert Gold reflects on the country's history and politics, culture and folklore, but sees much more. He sees Haiti through the eyes of a lover: impassioned, jealous, probing, ever alert, and alive. This book will be of interest to travelers to, and people interested in the problems of, Haiti and the Caribbean; and collectors of Haitian art. Herbert Gold is a novelist, short writer, essayist, sometime journalist, who has made his living as a writer for fifty years.

Haiti

Haiti PDF Author: Herbert Gold
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 141282494X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
"In the course of an impressive career as a writer, Herbert Gold has demonstrated many gifts, among them his talent for making high drama of ordinary events, ordinary people."-Chicago Tribune Book World "Goldhas a sharp eye for detail."-The Washington Times Magazine "Not just a good book, but a great one."-London Daily Mail "Herbert Goldgives his stories a wry, bright air of wonderhe is a born storyteller."-New York Times "One of the most gifted writers in America."-Detroit News Five decades ago, award-winning author Herbert Gold traveled to Haiti on a Caribbean version of the Fulbright Scholarship. The journey proved to be a turning point in his life. Fifty years later, his attachment to the tiny Caribbean nation-his second home-remains as passionate and powerful as ever. Now, in Best Nightmare on Earth, he explores the secret life of this vibrant, volatile, violent land. "Beautifulbizarredangerousexotic, a Garden of Eden fallen into despair, a tiny nation of unimaginable misery and unpredictable grace, an island where life is a kind of literature, a world of "unlimited impossibility." This is Herbert Gold's Haiti, a country of extraordinary paradox and remarkable extremes-of gingerbread dream houses and wretched slums, of brutal repression and explosive creative energy. Where else, he asks, can you run into evil spirits on the back roads, or find the goddess of fertility and orgasm represented by a photo of a tap-dancing Shirley Temple? Where else is there such generosity amid such corruption, such humor in the midst of such desperation? In his many Haitian travels, Gold has dined with Graham Greene and chatted with the hated Duvalier oppressors. He has traded stories with CIA saboteurs, former Nazis, rum-soaked diplomats, and voodoo priests. He has taken in the cockfights and hunted for pirate treasure. He has nearly died of malaria; he has faced machete-wielding gangs of Ton-Ton Macoutes. He followed the traffic in Haitian blood to American hospitals and watched the AIDS epidemic take its toll. He listened to the steady beat of drums rolling down mist-shrouded mountains, and shared in the flirting, drinking, and laughter of the streets. He has captured the essence of this land where tragedy is the music the people dance to. Herbert Gold reflects on the country's history and politics, culture and folklore, but sees much more. He sees Haiti through the eyes of a lover: impassioned, jealous, probing, ever alert, and alive. This book will be of interest to travelers to, and people interested in the problems of, Haiti and the Caribbean; and collectors of Haitian art. Herbert Gold is a novelist, short writer, essayist, sometime journalist, who has made his living as a writer for fifty years.

Haiti: Best Nightmare on Earth

Haiti: Best Nightmare on Earth PDF Author: Herbert Gold
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351516426
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
Five decades ago, award-winning author Herbert Gold traveled to Haiti on a Caribbean version of the Fulbright Scholarship. The journey proved to be a turning point in his life. Fifty years later, his attachment to the tiny Caribbean nation-his second home-remains as passionate and powerful as ever. Now, in Best Nightmare on Earth, he explores the secret life of this vibrant, volatile, violent land. -Beautiful...bizarre...dangerous...exotic, a Garden of Eden fallen into despair, a tiny nation of unimaginable misery and unpredictable grace, an island where life is a kind of literature, a world of -unlimited impossibility.- This is Herbert Gold's Haiti, a country of extraordinary paradox and remarkable extremes-of gingerbread dream houses and wretched slums, of brutal repression and explosive creative energy. Where else, he asks, can you run into evil spirits on the back roads, or find the goddess of fertility and orgasm represented by a photo of a tap-dancing Shirley Temple? Where else is there such generosity amid such corruption, such humor in the midst of such desperation? In his many Haitian travels, Gold has dined with Graham Greene and chatted with the hated Duvalier oppressors. He has traded stories with CIA saboteurs, former Nazis, rum-soaked diplomats, and voodoo priests. He has taken in the cockfights and hunted for pirate treasure. He has nearly died of malaria; he has faced machete-wielding gangs of Ton-Ton Macoutes. He followed the traffic in Haitian blood to American hospitals and watched the AIDS epidemic take its toll. He listened to the steady beat of drums rolling down mist-shrouded mountains, and shared in the flirting, drinking, and laughter of the streets. He has captured the essence of this land where tragedy is the music the people dance to. Herbert Gold reflects on the country's history and politics, culture and folklore, but sees much more. He sees Haiti through the eyes of a lover: impassioned, jealous, probing, ever alert, and alive. This book will be of interest to travelers to, and people interested in the problems of, Haiti and the Caribbean; and collectors of Haitian art.

Best Nightmare on Earth

Best Nightmare on Earth PDF Author: Herbert Gold
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780586092477
Category : Haiti
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description


Haiti

Haiti PDF Author: Richard Frechette
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 141284763X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
As a priest and a physician, Richard Frechette has known the body, heart, and soul of people in the most anguishing of circumstances. He has carried out his double ministry over the past twenty-five years in settings of extreme poverty, violence, social upheaval, and natural disasters. This personal experience of tough realities has been at once a descent into chaos and an ascent into compassion, never more so than in his work in Haiti. The reflections in this volume are less about Haiti than they are about real-life incidents that happened there, during a particular time in history. In a fuller sense, these reflections shed light on what happens in any place, at any time, to people of any race or class, who live out an assault on their human dignity. Whenever the dignity of human beings is marred, the human spirit finds itself in threatened conditions, and seeks desperately to preserve what is human about it. This is the unfailing light of Gods grace, ever present and faithful, fiercely persistent in trying to renew the face of the earth and the pilgrim human heart. Grounded in space and time, and yet speaking of universal concerns, this very personal volume shows how the ancient human scourges of poverty, ignorance, illness, and violence desecrate humanity and weaken the spirit. Yet as Frechette shows, from these ashes many people, with the help of God, valiantly rise. This is a stunning work that crosses conventional barriers between the personal and the political, between degradation by others and elevation by selves. "I will lead you by the way.... that you may become the brother of God and learn to know the Christ of the burnt men." -Thomas Merton

Haiti: The Aftershocks of History

Haiti: The Aftershocks of History PDF Author: Laurent Dubois
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 0805095624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
A passionate and insightful account by a leading historian of Haiti that traces the sources of the country's devastating present back to its turbulent and traumatic history Even before the 2010 earthquake destroyed much of the country, Haiti was known as a benighted place of poverty and corruption. Maligned and misunderstood, the nation has long been blamed by many for its own wretchedness. But as acclaimed historian Laurent Dubois makes clear, Haiti's troubled present can only be understood by examining its complex past. The country's difficulties are inextricably rooted in its founding revolution—the only successful slave revolt in the history of the world; the hostility that this rebellion generated among the colonial powers surrounding the island nation; and the intense struggle within Haiti itself to define its newfound freedom and realize its promise. Dubois vividly depicts the isolation and impoverishment that followed the 1804 uprising. He details how the crushing indemnity imposed by the former French rulers initiated a devastating cycle of debt, while frequent interventions by the United States—including a twenty-year military occupation—further undermined Haiti's independence. At the same time, Dubois shows, the internal debates about what Haiti should do with its hard-won liberty alienated the nation's leaders from the broader population, setting the stage for enduring political conflict. Yet as Dubois demonstrates, the Haitian people have never given up on their struggle for true democracy, creating a powerful culture insistent on autonomy and equality for all. Revealing what lies behind the familiar moniker of "the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere," this indispensable book illuminates the foundations on which a new Haiti might yet emerge.

Cathedral of the August Heat

Cathedral of the August Heat PDF Author: Pierre Clitandre
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
A richly colored evocation of life in the slums of Port-au-Prince.

Our Man in Haiti

Our Man in Haiti PDF Author: Joan Mellen
Publisher: Trine Day
ISBN: 1936296535
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
Delving into the complex and intertwined world of the CIA, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, this book takes on the angle of those who knew and associated with Kennedy’s alleged assassin. Profiling George de Mohrenschildt, a petroleum geologist based in Dallas and Haiti, this examination explores the relationship between Oswald, the CIA, and de Mohrenschildt. This book also investigates the CIA’s involvement in the Haitian government during the 1960s, and seeks to connect each entity to each other in the jigsaw puzzle that is the Kennedy assassination.

"Visualizing Haiti in U.S. Culture, 1910?950 "

Author: LindsayJ. Twa
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351537407
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
From the late 1910s through the 1950s, particularly, the Caribbean nation of Haiti drew the attention and imaginations of many key U.S. artists, yet curiously, while significant studies have been published on Haiti's history and inter-American exchanges, none analyze visual representations with any depth. The author calls not only on the methodologies of art history, but also on the interdisciplinary eye of visual culture studies, anthropology, literary theory, and tourism studies to examine the fine arts in relation to popular arts, media, social beliefs, and institutional structures. Twa emphasizes close visual readings of photographs, illustrations, paintings, and theatre. Extensive textual and archival research also supports her visual analysis, such as scrutinizing the personal papers of this study's artists, writers, and intellectuals. Among the literary and artistic luminaries of the twentieth century that Twa includes in her discussion are Richmond Barth?Eldzier Cortor, Aaron Douglas, Katherine Dunham, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alexander King, Jacob Lawrence, James Weldon Johnson, Lo?Mailou Jones, Eugene O?Neill, and William Edouard Scott. Twa argues that their choice of Haiti as subject matter was a highly charged decision by these American artists to use their artwork to engage racial, social, and political issues.

Culture and Customs of Haiti

Culture and Customs of Haiti PDF Author: J. Michael Dash
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1567507395
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
Culture and Customs of Haiti begins with an overview of the mountainous island that seemed forbidding to European colonizers. Historical periods, including French colonization, U.S. occupation in the early 20th century, Independence and the Duvaliers' reigns, until today, are reviewed and provide the framework for the volume. A chapter on the people and society details the pride of the black state that managed the only successful slave revolution in history. The extremes of society from the elite to the peasantry and slum dwellers are depicted, along with Haitians in diaspora. Religion in Haiti, with the strong amalgamation of Roman Catholicism and vaudou, a West African import, is then explained. A Social Customs chapter notes the joy that is found in such an economically depressed culture. The media and literature and language chapters necessarily unfold in the context of Haiti's political history. A section on writing in Creole is especially intriguing. Finally, chapters on the performing arts and visual arts evoke the energy and color of the people in such forms as vaudou jazz and dance, contemporary rara rock, and the folkloric influence on Haitian painting. A chronology and glossary supplement the text.

Tropics of Haiti

Tropics of Haiti PDF Author: Marlene Daut
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1781381844
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 706

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Book Description
The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was an event of international significance. Here is a literary history of those events, Haiti's war of independence is examined through the eyes of its actual and imagined participants, observers, survivors, and cultural descendants.