#French Jean Roumain (Haiti)

• Author: Jacques Roumain (1907-1945)
• Genre:  novel (pg 210)
• Title:  Gouverneurs de la rosée
• Published:  1944
• Trivia: On 18 August 1945  3 days after returning from Cuba
• Jacques Roumain dies at the age of 37 years old.
• Cause of death….unknown but it is whispered
• …that he was poisoned by the powers that be.
• #French
  
• #SummerInOtherLanguages

1. If book is on Edwidge Danticat’s top 10 list…time to read it!
2. Gouverneurs de la rosée by Haitian writer Jacques Roumain.
3. They say it’s a masterpiece!

Quick scan:

1. The novel centers on Manuel, a Haitian peasant forced to find work
2. at a U.S. sugar plantation. 
3. Returning to Haiti, Manuel tried to i
4. instill in his fellow peasants
5. a sense of their role modern capitalism.
6. They need only realize their own collective power
7. …to end their exploitation.
8. Subplot:
9. …Caribbean version of Romeo and Juliet
10. …Manuel and Annaīse.

Conclusion:

1. This book is difficult to review.
2. Weak point: pace
3. Roumain opens the book with a lyrical snapshot
4. of the flora and fauna of Haiti.
5. Beautiful as it is….this continues in each chapter.
6. I know more names for hillocks, shrubs, slopes, thistles
7. …wood pigeons, pebbles, mango trees in French than is needed!
8. Strong point: sense of place
9. I’m sure this nostalgic look at Haiti had a purpose
10. ….it was to help people who have left this Caribbean island
11. …return home even if it is just in a book.
12. Weak point: conflict
13. A reader needs some action to push the story along.
14. After 54% of the book we finally see a
15. “forbidden” love story beginning
16. ….and a quest that the main character intends to complete.
17. Strong point: social commentary
18. Jacques Roumain was a political activist.
19. His participation in the resistance movement against the
20. United States’ occupation, and most notably,
21. his creation of the Haitian Communist Party.
22. He was arrested and finally exiled
23. Roumain laid bare many problems facing Haiti:
24. deforestation, drought,
25. tribalism (people are overly loyal to their own group)
26. resource control by the elite class
27. feeling of resignation in one’s fate
28. …encouraged by religion and voodoo.

Last thoughts:

• This is not a masterpiece that would sweep you off your feet
• but a gentle, simple story about the resilience of a proud Haitian village.

1. Sadly this book written in 1944 is visionary.
2. Haiti has less than 1% of its original primary forest and is
3. therefore among the most deforested countries in the world.
4. In 1923 60% of the island was forests.
5. Haiti’s literacy rate of about 61%.
6. That is well below the 90% average literacy rate for
7. Latin American and Caribbean countries.
8. 2019: corruption, foreign mercenaries
9. Two former Navy SEALs, a former Blackwater employee, and two Serbian mercenaries
10. were tasked with protecting the former head of the National Lottery.
11. He intended to transfer US$80 million from a PetroCaribe bank account
12. to a bank account solely controlled by President Jovenel Moïse
13. 2021: coup, assassination of the President Moïse.