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Haiti and the United States

National Stereotypes and the Literary Imagination

  • Book
  • © 1997

Overview

Authors:
  1. J. Michael Dash

    1. University of the West Indies, Jamaica

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
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  2. Through the Eyes of the Other: Stereotypes of the Nineteenth Century

    • J. Michael Dash
    Pages 1-21

  3. Through the Looking Glass: Textual Politics and the American Occupation

    • J. Michael Dash
    Pages 22-44

  4. Dreaming the Same Dream: Harlem, Haiti and Racial Solidarity

    • J. Michael Dash
    Pages 45-72

  5. Passionate Apologists: Haiti and the Unitea States in the Post-Occupation Years

    • J. Michael Dash
    Pages 73-100

  6. The Art of Darkness: Writing in the Duvalier Years

    • J. Michael Dash
    Pages 101-134

  7. Caribbean Overtures

    • J. Michael Dash
    Pages 135-162

  8. Epilogue: The Final Frontier

    • J. Michael Dash
    Pages 163-168

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 169-182
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Keywords

About this book

Imaginative literature, argues Michael Dash, does not merely reflect, but actively influences historical events. He demonstrates this by a close examination of the relations between Haiti and the United States through the imaginative literature of both countries. The West's mythification of Haiti is a strategy used to justify either ostracism or domination, a process traced here from the nineteenth-century until it emerges with a voyeuristic fierceness in the 1960s. In an effort to resist these stereotypes, Haitian literature becomes a subversive manoeuvre permitting Haitians to 'rewrite' themselves. The Unites States 'invented' Haiti as a land of savagery and mystery, a source of evil and shame. Weaving together text and historical context, Dash discusses the durability of these images, which continue to shape official policy and popular attitudes today.

Reviews

'Dash's book is a sophisticated and fascinating critical study of the clash of cultures illuminating many of the political positions taken by each country at crucial stages of history.' - David Nicholls, Times Higher Education Supplement

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of the West Indies, Jamaica

    J. Michael Dash

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