Product Description

In After the Dance, one of Haiti’s most renowned daughters returns to her homeland, taking readers on a stunning, exquisitely rendered journey beyond the hedonistic surface of Carnival and into its deep heart.

Edwidge Danticat had long been scared off from Carnival by a loved one, who spun tales of people dislocating hips from gyrating with too much abandon, losing their voices from singing too loudly, going deaf from the clamor of immense speakers, and being punched, stabbed, pummeled, or fondled by other lustful revelers. Now an adult, she resolves to return and exorcise her Carnival demons. She spends the week before Carnival in the area around Jacmel, exploring the rolling hills and lush forests and meeting the people who live and die in them. During her journeys she traces the heroic and tragic history of the island, from French colonists and Haitian revolutionaries to American invaders and home-grown dictators. Danticat also introduces us to many of the performers, artists, and organizers who re-create the myths and legends that bring the Carnival festivities to life. When Carnival arrives, we watch as she goes from observer to participant and finally loses herself in the overwhelming embrace of the crowd.

Part travelogue, part memoir, this is a lyrical narrative of a writer rediscovering her country along with a part of herself. It’s also a wonderful introduction to Haiti’s southern coast and to the true beauty of Carnival.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #662226 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-06
• Released on: 2002-08-06
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.91" h x .73" w x 5.18" l, .60 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Twenty years after emigrating to America, Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory) returns to her native Haiti and the coastal village of Jacmel to take part in her first Carnival. But she's not without reservations. As a child she was forbidden to partake in the festivities by her uncle, a Baptist minister with whom she lived before joining her parents in New York at age 12. "People always hurt themselves during carnival, he said, and it was their fault, for gyrating with so much abandon that they would dislocate their hips and shoulders and lose their voices while singing too loudly." Organized in sections that parallel Danticat's perambulations in the week leading up to the event, the author illuminates the political, economic and cultural history of the island nation, introducing Columbus, French colonists and Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, the dictator of Danticat's youth. Throughout, readers meet local artists, farmers and activists who call Jacmel home, including Ovid, a farmer whom Danticat meets having lost her way in an abandoned sugar plantation. Madame Ovid, his wife, crafts paper cones to hold the grilled corn flour she will sell during carnival. It's said that the act of writing leads to a deeper understanding of one's subject, and oneself. As the work reveals in its final pages, for no one is this more true than Danticat, who offers an enlightening look at the country and Carnival through the eyes of one of its finest writers.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Danticat (Farming of Bones; The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Diaspora in the United States) journeyed back to her native Haiti to explore what had been forbidden in her childhood: the colorful, raucous, dangerous carnival. Arriving a week before the annual event, she sought out some of the island's more unusual residents while exploring the history, folklore, and meaning of the many images of carnival. Her lively narrative describes a rich and complicated cultural history, influenced by Christianity, vodou, Europeans, pirates, dictators, past slavery, and an uncertain economy. From zombies, Arawak Indians, and SIDA (syndrome immuno-deficitaire acquis), representing the ravages of AIDS, to the devilish Mathurins, who battle the dragon-slaying archangel Saint Michel, the many masked and costumed carnival participants parade by Danticat. By the end of the story, she has overcome her childhood fears, dropped her inhibitions, and joined in the enthusiastic revelry that is carnival, embracing strangers and singing. A short but entertaining narrative; for academic and public libraries. [This is the first in a series called "Journeys" that will feature noted authors on favorite destinations; forthcoming works include Michael Cunningham on Provincetown, Laura Esquivel on Mexico, Ishmael Reed on Oakland, and Myla Goldberg on Prague. Ed.] Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adam.
- Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Renowned Haitian American writer Danticat left her homeland at age 12 without ever having been to Carnival, kept safely away by her protective Baptist minister uncle. The frightening stories he told her aroused fears she still had to contend with when she returned to the southern coastal town of Jacmel determined to finally experience this culturally defining event. As in her fiction, Danticat writes about her odyssey with an admirable delicacy and meticulousness. She begins her mental and physical peregrinations in a cemetery, sacred ground on which she remembers Arawak Indians, European invaders, and African slaves. Danticat's musings subtly illuminate the island nation's tragic legacies, brutal politics, and deeply entrenched poverty, as well as the healing forces of its vital spirituality, art, and music, factors that converge in her stirring account of the highly symbolic and kinetically cathartic Carnival parade. As Danticat gains a fresh perspective on her homeland, the reader discovers a Haiti only she can reveal. Donna Seaman
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