Myriam JA Chancy's Books

Framing Silence

Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Framing Silence

Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

In this first book-length study in English devoted exclusively to Haitian women's literature, Myriam Chancy finds that Haitian women have their own history, traditions, and stories to tell, tales that they are unwilling to suppress or subordinate to narratives of national autonomy. Issues of race, class, color, caste, nationality, and sexuality are all central to their fiction--as is an urgent sense of the historical place of women between the two U.S. occupations of the country. Their novels interrogate women's social and political stance in Haiti from an explicitly female point of view, forcefully responding to overt sexual and political violence within the nation's ambivalent political climate.

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Page Count

222

Publisher

Rutgers University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813523400

ISBN 13

9780813523408

The Loneliness of Angels

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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The Loneliness of Angels

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

Offering a richly nuanced portrayal placing Haiti in a global context as a place of ethnic and cultural complexity, this novel explores the role of spirituality in Caribbean life and culture. Told through multiple voices in a nonlinear fashion, the narrative unfolds through the perspectives of a Haitian-Syrian merchant, Ruth, who recounts her young adulthood and final days as she intuits her imminent death; Catherine, a professional pianist living in Paris who travels home to Haiti upon hearing of her Aunt Ruth’s murder; Rose, Catherine’s mother, an empath, who is believed to have committed suicide in Canadian exile in reaction to the worst years of the Duvalier regime; Romulus, a once famous Konpa singer and an addict, who, released by rebels from a Port-au-Prince jail searches for his redemption; and Elsie, an Irish, working-class seer who emigrates to Haiti in 1847 in search of a new mystic who will guide them all. Traversing the terrains of Port-au-Prince middle-class life, working-class French Canada, expatriate Paris, the peat bogs of famine stricken Ireland, and tracing lives that cross boundaries of time and place, this is a deeply absorbing portrayal of a fragmented community whose deepest connections lie in a shared sense of spirituality.

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Page Count

353

Publisher

Peepal Tree PressLtd

Published Date

ISBN 10

1845231228

ISBN 13

9781845231224

From Sugar to Revolution

Women’s Visions of Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic

By: Myriam J.A. Chancy

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From Sugar to Revolution

Women’s Visions of Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic

By: Myriam J.A. Chancy

Sovereignty. Sugar. Revolution. These are the three axes this book uses to link the works of contemporary women artists from Haiti—a country excluded in contemporary Latin American and Caribbean literary studies—the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. In From Sugar to Revolution: Women’s Visions of Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, Myriam Chancy aims to show that Haiti’s exclusion is grounded in its historical role as a site of ontological defiance. Her premise is that writers Edwidge Danticat, Julia Alvarez, Zoé Valdés, Loida Maritza Pérez, Marilyn Bobes, Achy Obejas, Nancy Morejón, and visual artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons attempt to defy fears of “otherness” by assuming the role of “archaeologists of amnesia.” They seek to elucidate women’s variegated lives within the confining walls of their national identifications—identifications wholly defined as male. They reach beyond the confining limits of national borders to discuss gender, race, sexuality, and class in ways that render possible the linking of all three nations. Nations such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba are still locked in battles over self-determination, but, as Chancy demonstrates, women’s gendered revisionings may open doors to less exclusionary imaginings of social and political realities for Caribbean people in general.

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Page Count

588

Publisher

Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1554582733

ISBN 13

9781554582730

What Storm, What Thunder

By: Myriam JA Chancy

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What Storm, What Thunder

By: Myriam JA Chancy

American Book Award Winner Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist A NPR, Boston Globe, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Library Journal Best Book of the Year “Stunning.” —Margaret Atwood At the end of a long, sweltering day, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster—Richard, an expat and wealthy water-bottling executive with a secret daughter; the daughter, Anne, an architect who drafts affordable housing structures for a global NGO; a small-time drug trafficker, Leopold, who pines for a beautiful call girl; Sonia and her business partner, Dieudonné, who are followed by a man they believe is the vodou spirit of death; Didier, an emigrant musician who drives a taxi in Boston; Sara, a mother haunted by the ghosts of her children in an IDP camp; her husband, Olivier, an accountant forced to abandon the wife he loves; their son, Jonas, who haunts them both; and Ma Lou, the old woman selling produce in the market who remembers them all. Brilliantly crafted, fiercely imagined, and deeply haunting, What Storm, What Thunder is a singular, stunning record, a reckoning of the heartbreaking trauma of disaster, and—at the same time—an unforgettable testimony to the tenacity of the human spirit.

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299

Publisher

Tin House Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1951142845

ISBN 13

9781951142841

From Sugar to Revolution

Women’s Visions of Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic

By: Myriam J.A. Chancy

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From Sugar to Revolution

Women’s Visions of Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic

By: Myriam J.A. Chancy

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588

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Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1554582733

ISBN 13

9781554582730

Spirit of Haiti

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Spirit of Haiti

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

Vivid and poignant, Spirit of Haiti follows the intersecting lives of four young witnesses to military-ruled Haiti during the early 1990s. Léah, an apparition, rises from the sea like a siren one morning off the coast of Cap Haitien, clothes untouched by water, blue stones wrapped around her neck, eyes blind to light. Soon to be a mother, Carmen returns to Haiti from Canada as if responding to the call of the vodou spirits. Alexis flees the island in search of a land without strife. Finally, there is Philippe, who walks the northern hills alert to ancestral voices still haunting its peaks and valleys. Doing what he must to get by in the tourist trade and now weakened by illness, he struggles to maintain spiritual dignity and a hold on hope. First published in 2003 and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize in the Caribbean and Canada region, Spirit of Haiti is a novel about confronting the failings of the human heart and the triumph of memory over despair.

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Page Count

361

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438495110

ISBN 13

9781438495118

Autochthonomies

Transnationalism, Testimony, and Transmission in the African Diaspora

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Autochthonomies

Transnationalism, Testimony, and Transmission in the African Diaspora

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

In Autochthonomies, Myriam J. A. Chancy engages readers in an interpretive journey. She lays out a radical new process that invites readers to see creations by artists of African descent as legible within the context of African diasporic historical and cultural debates. By invoking a transnational African/diasporic lens and negotiating it through a lakou or ”yard space,” we can see such identities transfigured, recognized, and exchanged. Chancy demonstrates how the process can examine the salient features of texts and art that underscore African/diasporic sensibilities and render them legible. What emerges is a potential for richer readings of African diasporic works that also ruptures the Manichean binary dynamics that have dominated previous interpretations of the material. The result: an enriching interpretive mode focused on the transnational connections between subjects of African descent as the central pole for reader investigation. A bold challenge to established scholarship, Autochthonomies ranges from Africa to Europe and the Americas to provide powerful new tools for charting the transnational interactions between African cultural producers and sites.

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361

Publisher

University of Illinois Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0252051904

ISBN 13

9780252051906

Framing Silence

Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Framing Silence

Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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222

Publisher

Rutgers University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813523400

ISBN 13

9780813523408

Autochthonomies

Transnationalism, Testimony, and Transmission in the African Diaspora

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Autochthonomies

Transnationalism, Testimony, and Transmission in the African Diaspora

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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361

Publisher

University of Illinois Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0252051904

ISBN 13

9780252051906

Village Weavers

By: Myriam JA Chancy

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Village Weavers

By: Myriam JA Chancy

“Chancy is one of our most brilliant writers and storytellers.”—Edwidge Danticat “Myriam J. A. Chancy is a masterful writer.”—José Olivarez From award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy comes an extraordinary and enduring story of two families—forever joined by country, and by long-held secrets—and two girls with a bond that refuses to be broken. In 1940s’ Port-au-Prince, Gertie and Sisi become fast childhood friends, despite being on opposite ends of the social and economic ladder. As young girls, they build their unlikely friendship—until a deathbed revelation ripples through their families and tears them apart. After François Duvalier’s rule turns deadly in the 1950s, Sisi moves to Paris, while Gertie marries into a wealthy Dominican family. Across decades and continents, through personal success and failures, they are parted and reunited, slowly learning the truth of their singular relationship. Finally, six decades later, with both women in the United States, a sudden phone call brings them back together once more to reckon with and—perhaps—forgive the past. Told with power and frankness, Village Weavers confronts the silences around class, race, and nationality, charts the moments when lives are irrevocably forced apart, and envisions two girls—connected their entire lives—who try to break inherited cycles of mistrust and find ways back into each other’s hearts.

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Page Count

346

Publisher

Tin House Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1959030523

ISBN 13

9781959030522

Searching for Safe Spaces

Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile

By: Myriam Chancy

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Searching for Safe Spaces

Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile

By: Myriam Chancy

Home. Exile. Return. Words heavy with meaning and passion. For Myriam Chancy, these three themes animate the lives and writings of dispossessed Afro-Caribbean women. Understanding exile as flight from political persecution or types of oppression that single out women, Chancy concentrates on diasporic writers and filmmakers who depict the vulnerability of women to poverty and exploitation in their homelands and their search for safe refuge. These Afro-Caribbean feminists probe the complex issues of race, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class that limit women's lives. They portray the harsh conditions that all too commonly drive women into exile, depriving them of security and a sense of belonging in their adopted countries -- the United States, Canada, or England. As they rework traditional literary forms, artists such as Joan Riley, Beryl Gilroy, M. Noubese Philip, Dionne Brand, Makeda Silvera, Audre Lorde, Rosa Guy, Michelle Cliff, and Mari Chauvet give voice to Åfro-Caribbean women's alienation and longing to return home. Whether their return is realized geographically or metaphorically, the poems, fiction, and film considered in this book speak boldly of self-definition and transformation.

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Page Count

273

Publisher

Temple University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1566395402

ISBN 13

9781566395403

What Storm, What Thunder

By: Myriam JA Chancy

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What Storm, What Thunder

By: Myriam JA Chancy

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299

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Tin House Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1951142845

ISBN 13

9781951142841

Harvesting Haiti

Reflections on Unnatural Disasters

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Harvesting Haiti

Reflections on Unnatural Disasters

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 was a debilitating event that followed decades of political, social, and financial issues. Leaving over 250,000 people dead, 300,000 injured, and 1.5 million people homeless, the earthquake has had lasting repercussions on a struggling nation. In this book, Myriam Chancy encourages us to look at Haiti and to continue to examine the historical and present structures that have resulted in Haiti's post-earthquake conditions. And as Haiti is newly recovering from another 7.2 magnitude earthquake from August 2021, the questions that Chancy seeks to answer and the stories she aims to document seem all the more urgent. Originally presented at invited campus talks, published as columns for a newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago, or other venues, the essays in Harvesting Haiti respond to a particular moment and preserve the reactions and urgencies in the years following the 2010 disaster. As Chancy explains, this work "remains pertinent to discussions of Haiti today and to understand what was being discussed in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, which continues to mark the country today, is relevant to what may or may not be possible for its future." The volume is organized into five parts, each with a thematic focus that reveals an important element for the context of post-earthquake Haiti. Part I provides political contexts and background, and includes pieces on international aid, Haiti's exclusion from global trade, and overarching issues in the battle for sovereignty. In Part II, an interview and two essays based on invited talks problematize the media's portrayal of gendered issues in the wake of the disaster. Part III takes an artistic turn with a poem and photo essay. Part IV preserves essays originally published in a column in a discontinued magazine insert for The Trinidad Express. Part V looks to the impact of the earthquake on the already vexed relationship between Haiti and their neighbor, the Dominican Republic. The book concludes with a reflection from five years after the earthquake, and then the tenth anniversary of the disaster"--

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Page Count

305

Publisher

University of Texas Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1477327819

ISBN 13

9781477327814

Searching for Safe Spaces

Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile

By: Myriam Chancy

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Searching for Safe Spaces

Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile

By: Myriam Chancy

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273

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Temple University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1566395402

ISBN 13

9781566395403

Harvesting Haiti

Reflections on Unnatural Disasters

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Harvesting Haiti

Reflections on Unnatural Disasters

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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305

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University of Texas Press

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ISBN 10

1477327819

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9781477327814

Searching for Safe Spaces

Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

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Searching for Safe Spaces

Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile

By: Myriam J. A. Chancy

As they rework traditional literary forms, artists such as Joan Riley, Beryl Gilroy, M. Nourbese Philip, Dionne Brand, Makeda Silvera, Audre Lorde, Rosa Guy, Michelle Cliff, and Marie Chauvet give voice to Afro-Caribbean women's alienation and longing to return home. Whether the return home is realized geographically or metaphorically, the poems, fiction, and film considered in this book speak boldly of self-definition and transformation.

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Page Count

246

Published Date

ISBN 10

1566395399

ISBN 13

9781566395397

Book's by Myriam JA Chancy

Framing Silence

Framing Silence

The Loneliness of Angels

The Loneliness of Angels

From Sugar to Revolution

From Sugar to Revolution

What Storm, What Thunder

What Storm, What Thunder

From Sugar to Revolution

From Sugar to Revolution

Spirit of Haiti

Spirit of Haiti

Autochthonomies

Autochthonomies

Framing Silence

Framing Silence

Autochthonomies

Autochthonomies

Village Weavers

Village Weavers

Searching for Safe Spaces

Searching for Safe Spaces

What Storm, What Thunder

What Storm, What Thunder

Harvesting Haiti

Harvesting Haiti

Searching for Safe Spaces

Searching for Safe Spaces

Harvesting Haiti

Harvesting Haiti

Searching for Safe Spaces

Searching for Safe Spaces

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