Vale of Tears: A Novel from Haiti

Fiction. Caribbean Studies. Translated from the French by Dolores A. Schaefer. VALE OF TEARS is a stark, meditative, and vivid exploration of Coralie Santeuil's life through a series of flashbacks she has on New Year's eve as she makes fourteen stops while walking from one end of the busy city of Port-au-Prince to the other in a last quest to save her life and retain her dignity. Although the novel is set in the period around the Second World War, it is in many ways a book about contemporary Haiti. We pause to wonder what happens to the privileged when their world disintegrates. We contemplate thesurvival skills of the poor. Vale of Tears offers a critical reading of the class system and corruption which plague the country. Paulette Poujol-Oriol is one of Haiti's most celebrated novelists.

About the Author

Paulette Poujol-Oriol is one of Haiti’s most celebrated novelists. She won Le Monde’s prestigious prize for best short story in francophone countries in 1988 for "La Fleur Rouge." She also received Haiti’s coveted literary prize, the Prix Henri Deschamps, for her novel Le Creuset (The Crucible) in 1980.

Reviews

News