Authors

The world became aware of Haiti's great writers during its Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s. African American poet Langston Hughes traveled there hoping to meet Jacques Romaine, a Haitian poet who he admired. Hughes later described the meeting.

For an hour, in French--mine halting, and in English--his bad, we talked about poetry and people. Jacques showed me his excellent library in many languages with the cloth and board bindings of America and England mingling with the bright paper covers of France and Germany. . . . And he made me a present of his poems.

Romaine, still famous among Haitians, is but one of the many writers who have enriched the literature of Haiti and the world. They've included poet and playwright Felix Morriseau-Leroy, journalist Yvonne Hakim Rimpel, author Jean-Price Mars, and many more.

Haitian writers wrote in French at first and later in Creole. Massillon Coicou, for example, pioneered Haitian Creole literature with his Emperor Dessalines. George Sylvain did the same with a collection of short stories.

The Haitian literary tradition has grown stronger in recent times, but with a twist. More Haitian and Haitian American women are writing than ever before. Some of them have formed the Women Writers of Haitian Descent (WWOHD), a group that promotes the work of talented Haitian women writers. "I write therefore I am," declares one of the group's slogans.

Perhaps one of the most widely known and successful of these young women writers is Edwidge Danticat. She started her writing career at age 9.

Find out more about Danticat, and prepare a speech that might be given to introduce her to a conference on Haitian writers in the 20th century.