The Enigma of the Return

"I could have chosen almost any book by Dany Laferrière, going back to the 1980s when he published Comment faire l’amour avec un Nègre sans se fatiguer , which is the shocking sort of title which launched his career. He’s never lost that humour and that ribald way of poking fun at uptight Anglo and Franco morals. But the reason why I chose this one in particular is because I feel that in this novel, he is a writer in full possession of his talent. He is a virtuoso in the way he weaves together his own personal story of exile from Haiti—or his father’s story of exile from Haiti, his mother is still there—with the whole political aspect of the successive Duvalier regimes, which caused the Haitian diaspora to come into existence beginning in the 70s and 80s. Also, it comprises all of the cultural layers that make him the writer that he is, beginning (most fundamentally) with Aimé Césaire and his powerful poem of blackness, of return to the native country, Cahier d’un retour au pays natal . Césaire is the literary forefather who parallels the biological father whose loss Dany Laferrière talks about in this book. His use of poetry is not entirely groundbreaking because Réjean Ducharme wrote The Daughter of Christopher Columbus entirely in verse. (The French original was published in 1969. Will Browning’s translation was published in 2000.) But he does it in such a fresh and beautiful way. There are passages in this book that are so rich. The story of the suitcase, for example. He goes to try and collect this briefcase that his father left in a safe deposit box after his father passes away. They don’t succeed in opening it because it’s locked with a code they can’t figure out so they have to leave the bank without this inheritance. And the lines are: Mes oncles comme hébétés devant la porte d’acier. Et moi plutôt léger de n’avoir pas à porter un tel poids. La valise des rêves avortés. In English: My uncles stand in disbelief in front of the iron door. I feel light not having to carry such weight. The suitcase of aborted dreams. He’s the lighter for not having to carry the “suitcase of aborted dreams.” But he carries it anyway. The whole book is that briefcase of dreams. It’s so powerful and so beautifully written. At the end, he has these lines: La vie langoureuse, d’avant Colomb. Pas trop sûr d’être dans un temps réel en m’avançant vers ce paysage longtemps rêvé. Or: The sweet life before Columbus. I’m not so sure whether I am in real time as I move toward this dreamed landscape. So, the dreams are still there, even though at the beginning he seems to have escaped their weight. It’s a beautiful book and I hope more people read it because it’s worth it. It’s a story of exile and love and longing and literature all combined."