Chapter 9 - The Predicament of Civilization

Summary

Why have we been so quick to dismiss late nineteenth-century Haitian novels in the field of francophone postcolonial studies? What have we failed to recognize as francophone or postcolonial in these texts? And how can we now begin to revisit them? This chapter proposes to answer these questions by drawing attention to the historical predicament that led nineteenth-century Haitian intellectuals and writers to embrace the West’s narratives of civilization and modernity when such discourses were in fact integral to North Atlantic imperialisms and white supremacy. It first provides a historical overview of the Haitian novel from its inception in the mid-nineteenth century to its booming production in the early 1900s. It then sheds light on Demesvar Delorme’s Francesca and Louis Joseph Janvier’s Une Chercheuse, two novels that help us understand how Haitian intellectuals sought to exist in a Eurocentric, international lettered sphere. Finally, it concludes by considering some of the ethical and intellectual challenges we must face in order to do justice to such works and their authors.