Hadriana in My Dreams

René Depestre

Heinemann International Literature & Textbooks

The Festival of the Greasy Pole (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French)

This novel, published for the first time in English, is one of the most important statements about the Duvalier regime in Haiti, written by a Haitian who played a prominent role in the revolutionary movement that brought down the Lescot regime in January 1946. Depestre's ironic note denying historical origins for the novel does not obscure the scathing caricature of Papa Doc Duvalier and the bloodbath that he visited on his own country, which is called "Zacharyland" after the fictionalized President-for-life Zoocrates Zachary.

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

University of Virginia Press

Popa Singer (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French)

United States

The latest novel by one of Haiti's most brilliant writers The most recent book by the renowned Haitian novelist, essayist, and poet René Depestre, Popa Singer is a semiautobiographical chronicle of Haiti in the late 1950s, the very moment when the country first came under decades of despotic rule. To celebrate her son's return home after years of exile, Dianira Fontoriol (aka "Popa Singer")--an indomitable mother armed only with her sewing machine and her personal convictions--determines to resist in her own way the infamous Ubu King of the Tropics: François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Depestre's novel tells the story of this at once intimate and epic struggle. Combining colorful fantasy and biting social satire, it is a deeply personal and singularly artistic take on an infamous chapter in Haitian history.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by René Depestre. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by René Depestre