The Comedians

"I have chosen this book because it is set in what is probably the third most traumatic period of Haiti’s history. The first was the extermination of the Tainos—who were the original inhabitants of Haiti —after Christopher Columbus landed in 1492. The second traumatic time was the Haitian revolution between 1793 and 1804 and the third one was the period of the Duvalier dictatorships and the rule of Papa Doc from 1957-1971, followed by his son Baby Doc until 1986. This novel is set in the early 1960s in the early days of the reign of Papa Doc. Although I wasn’t a witness to this regime, many consider this book captures extremely well the atmosphere in Haiti in those days when the Tonton Macoutes tightly controlled the country and brutally extinguished any attempt to change the political status quo. Absolutely, and that was Papa Doc’s way of controlling the country, because he couldn’t trust the military who were traditionally controlled by the tiny mulatto élite. He had won the elections because he really came to power on the wave of the black majority saying we must stop being subjugated by that élite. Graham Greene is very good at telling the story which reflects the small insurrections that happened a few times in Haiti, mainly led by mulatto officers. They were then joined by the main ‘comedian’ in the book, Mr Jones, who is travelling on the boat with Mr Brown, who is the first-person narrator, and the [American] presidential candidate Smith. The book is also very good at capturing Haiti’s function for the US government of the day. Papa Doc is seen as a bulwark against communism and the rebels trying to rescue their country from this dictatorship are labelled as communists. Yes, in the book the Oloffson is called Hotel Trianon which is now managed by Richard Morse, who is also leader of the Haitian racine band RAM. It is still running and survived the earthquake of 12 January 2010. It is a wonderful hotel which I have stayed in and is a must-see for any visitor in Haiti with its wonderful gingerbread architecture. Richard could try and keep it up better as it is so much part of Haiti’s history, but he would probably argue it survived the earthquake precisely because it’s so ramshackle! It is a place which is so interlinked with Haiti’s history. It used to be the house of President Guillaume Sam who was dragged from his residence just before the US invasion in 1915 and hacked to death in public. That created a lot of negative publicity and gave the US more reason to say they needed to restore order in Haiti, the real reason being they didn’t want the Germans there."