Femmes au temps des carnassiers: Dictatorship and Gender in Two Novels by Marie-Célie Agnant

Abstract

Abstract:This article provides a close reading of Marie-Célie Agnant's Un alligator nommé Rosa (2007) and Femmes au temps des carnassiers (2015), novels that examine the range of women's experiences during the Duvalier dictatorship. Inspired by real lives, they look back with a critical eye, offering multigenerational perspectives on the era and its aftermath. Agnant reimagines women who wield, abuse, defer to, contest, and resist power, as well as those who are coerced into silence in order to survive. By exploring the intersection of dictatorship, memory, and gender, Agnant advocates careful documentation of the past in order to lay the foundation for a democratic future, one that involves transparency, compromise, and above all, accountability.