Aunt Resía and the Spirits: Stories by Yanick Lahens
by Sampsonia Way / July 9, 2010 / No comments
Translated by Betty Wilson
The Haiti of Yanick Lahens‘ path-breaking short fiction is a country demanding our compassion as it reveals to us its horrors. Through her elliptical and sharp style she succeeds in conveying the authenticity of her people’s tragic fight for survival within the scope of our shared human experience. Here is day-to-day life, packed with its myriad emotions, desires, and contradictions, against a backdrop of extraordinary circumstances.
The men and women glimpsed in Lahens’s stories are confronted with the overwhelming task of simply staying alive. In her work, she presents testimonies, opens intimacies, sometimes offers hope, but always returns to the despair afflicting Haiti, because lying within it is the key to her country.
This is the first collection of Lahens’s unforgettable short stories available in English.
READ “Soursop, Orange, and Lemongrass” FROM AUNT RESIA AND THE SPIRITS
Purchase a copy of Aunt Resía and the Spirits.
Read Sampsonia Way‘s feature on Haitian literature
