In the three decades from the uprising of the enslaved in Saint-Domingue in 1791 to the recognition of Haitian independence by France in 1825, even amid the bitterest struggles, theatrical productions never fully stopped. When Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed independence, many of the officers surrounding him were directly involved in the theatre, as playwrights, actors, or both. Looking at figures such as Juste Chanlatte, Guy-Joseph Bonnet, Pierre-Charles Lys, Antoine Dupré and Jules Solime Milscent, this chapter makes a case for the importance of the theatre in the early years of Haitian independence as a reflection of the country’s evolving society, but also as a mirror and vector of domestic and international politics. A source of public entertainment and information designed and utilized for the most part by the country’s elites, the theatre was a prime tool in shaping and projecting idealized representations of the new nation and its leaders, within the country and to the outside world.

Building on the hypothesis of the Proclamation by Dessalines in Gonaïves on January 1, 1804, as the primary textual source of the Haitian tragedy with its two main features, warning or caution and explanation or clarification, which largely defines the novels of the Haitian tradition, this chapter makes a detailed analysis of this corpus published both in Haiti and abroad between 1901 and 1961. Showing the coherence of this body of tragic stories reported in a Haitian French language by narrators claiming to be Haitian depicting Haiti and its inhabitants, it also demonstrates its historical diversity. Exposing the main stages of its evolution, it highlights the genesis of these works over four main periods: the 1900s, its emergence as national novel with the publication in 1901 of Thémistocle-Épaminondas Labasterre by Frédéric Marcelin followed in 1905 by Justin Lhérisson’s La Famille des Pitite-Caille and Fernand Hibbert’s Séna; the 1910s–20s, its decline after the US occupation of Haiti; 1931–50, its Golden Age with writers who get international recognition; and the 1950s, the rise of Jacques Stephen Alexis and the beginning of the definite fall of the genre.

This chapter ruminates on the multiple meanings of home/lakay in the Haitian context, paying close attention to the concept of home in relation to material and physical spaces. Building on the work of scholars who have theorized diaspora as process, condition, and project, it argues that the Haitian Kreyòl term lakay presents fertile ground for extending theories of diaspora. It explores how these dynamics unfold in three works by contemporary Haitian artists: the novel La dot de Sara (2002) by Marie-Célie Agnant, two short stories by Edwidge Danticat from Krik? Krak! (1995), and the song “Fo m Ale” (2000) by Emeline Michel. Taking an approach that is both multilingual (French, English, Kreyòl) and multi-genre (essay, short story, novel, song), the methodology advances a broader argument about approaches to analyzing Haitian literature while calling attention to the importance of how diaspora manifests itself with local specificity.