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against the backdrop of the reign of terror of François Duvalier, who had by 1964 proclaimed himself president for life. She sent one manuscript (not three) to Paris and threw a party when she got a contract for the book with Gallimard, the premier French press. One can’t help wonder if some members of Haiti Littéraire, a poets’ group of which Vieux-Chauvet was an honorary member in the early sixties and which included Villard Denis (aka Davertige), Anthony Phelps, René Philoctète, Roland Morrisseau, and Serge Legagneur, were able to attend the party. At the party she recited excerpts from the book for the first time. It was then that family and friends expressed concerns about how the book might, no matter what absurd formula Duvalier used to determine who counted as an enemy of the state, put the life of every member of her family and her husband’s family at risk. That response made Vieux-Chauvet, who was by then a mother of three, a committed writer. She stood up for her book and refused to postpone its publication. She hoped that it would cause an international scandal and draw attention to Haiti.

In 1968 Gallimard published Amour, colère, et folie, but right before its distribution an incident occurred that changed the fate of the book as well as that of its author. Haiti’s ambassador to France apparently saw an advance copy and expressed concerns for the family’s safety. This episode made Marie Vieux-Chauvet cancel the book’s distribution and convinced her to turn her trip to New York into a permanent exile.

Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s daughter Régine Charlier confessed that many of her own questions about this story remain unanswered. The moral, social, and political complications of the failed launch of the author’s most important novel, however compelling, reinforce but should not overshadow or distort her true legacy: the work itself. Love, Anger, Madness offers a literary means of articulating the challenges Haiti’s history poses to its citizens and to the rest of the world, an articulation that is possible only because her protagonists are complex thinking subjects and not simply romantic heroes. When these subjects set aside racial, social, political, and religious affiliation (be it voodoo or Catholicism), what is left is pitiless self-investigation meant as a model for an investigation of the world. Of course, a sharpened mind can make for a raw heart. Then again, if the human being is but “an animal hemmed in by a narrow conscience” whose lot is to suffer, perhaps such lucidity is all we really need.

—ROSE-MYRIAM RÉJOUIS, BROOKLYN, 2009

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

Ten years ago, Régine Charlier, Marie Chauvet’s eldest daughter, wrote to me and Val about her desire to publish a translation of Amour, Colère, et Folie. Her letter came from Haiti and I remember being mesmerized by the distance between what the stamps commemorated (Renaissance art) and what was going on in Haiti (continual disappointment). Edwidge Danticat had given her our names. We wrote back right away, explaining that we had to decline because we had just returned to our Ph.D. programs and needed to focus on passing exams and writing our dissertations. We are moved that we were given a second chance.

A few words about our process: When asked how Val and I divide the labor of translating, I often respond: we take turns. When I defend the original, he defends the translation. When he defends the translation, I defend the original. This is still my best answer.—R.M.R.

TRANSLATORS’ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to express our gratitude to the following people and institutions for their support of this translation: Judy Sternlight, Edwidge Danticat, Régine Charlier, Thomas Colchie, Thomas Spear, Holly Webber, Michael Dash, Joan Dayan, Ronnie Scharfman, Carolyn Vega, Jeanne Garane, Emmanuelle Ertel, Etienne Dobenesque, Alyson Waters, Patrick Erouart-Siad, Margo Jefferson, Jonathan Veitch, Neil Gordon, Noah Eisenberg, Carolyn Berman, Laura Frost, Lea Beresford, Vincent La Scala, Ann Snitow, Ferentz Lafargue, Elaine Savory, John Flicker, Jessica Waters, Exit