Passages

This powerful novel by the Haitien-Quebecois writer Émile Ollivier tells the tale of a journey from one world to another. Passages is a Homeric epic told in parallel stories. One stream follows the adventures of Amédée Hosange who is leading a group of emigrants in Port-a-l’Écu, a forlorn little village in the Caribbean. They are about to set sail on a frail three-masted boat in the hope of escaping a miserable life. The other stream follows Normand Malavy, a Haïtien exiled in Quebec, who travels to Miami in poor health. The two tales merge when the boat is shipwrecked and the compatriots meet and their destinies mingle. With the action of the novel shifting between Montreal, Haiti and Miami, the author skillfully presents the characters as players in a drama on three levels –– present, past and mythic. Like Odysseus, seeking land, the protagonist Normand is also adrift in the modern world, in search of his past.