Enduring Encounters: Reflections on the Literary Works of Évelyne Trouillot

Abstract

Évelyne Trouillot undoubtedly occupies a prominent place in the landscape of Haitian letters. As a novelist, playwright, essayist, author of short stories and children’s books, and a meticulous researcher of Haitian history, her broad range of texts in French and Creole have resonated with readers across the Caribbean and Europe. Her work has been recognized by a slew of prestigious literary awards including the 2004 Prix Soroptimist de la romancière francophone awarded in Grenoble for her novel Rosalie L’ infâme, the 2005 Prix Beaumarchais for her play Le Bleu de l ’ île, and the 2010 Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde for her novel La Mémoire aux abois.1 For North American readers, access to Trouillot’s work has been a more recent phenomenon with the translated novels The Infamous Rosalie and Memory at Bay in 2013 and 2015, respectively.2 It is through translation that Anglophone audiences come to Trouillot’s work and decipher her texts’ dramatization of encounters between past and present, and across racial and class divides in Haiti. But why a special issue on Évelyne Trouillot? And why now? The forthcoming publication of Trouillot’s newest novel, Desirée Congo, presents a unique opportunity to look back at her monumental contribution to Caribbean and African diaspora literature, and to look forward to a new addition to her already expansive body of work.3 There is value in this simultaneous casting back and gazing ahead, perhaps best articulated by the fictional character Charlotte as she confides in her granddaughter Lisette in Rosalie l ’ infâme: “Un jour, je te le promets, je te parlerai de ces barracoons, un jour où tu auras besoin d’ailes pour te porter au-delà du moment présent. Un jour, où ton besoin sera plus fort que