Roxane gay ayiti
Books
“[A] commanding début . . . Mireille’s struggle to maintain a sense of self while being denied her freedom produces the novel’s most powerful chapters.”—New Yorker
“Roxane Gay’s riveting debut, An Untamed State, captivates from its opening sentence and doesn’t let travel. . . . Permit this be the year of Roxane Gay: you’ll tear through An Untamed State, but ponder it for long after.”—Nolan Feeney, Time.com
“A fairy tale . . . its complex and fragile moral arrived at through great pain and high cost. . . . Perhaps Haiti, too, is a gorgeous princess, well-versed in the vagaries of men, still searching for a happily ever after.” —Holly Bass, The New York Times Book Review
“Poignant . . . haunting . . . When Mireille is finally freed, her rocky adjustment harkens to that of the mother in Emma Donoghue’s Room. . . . Gay writes of her homeland beautifully, describing it in the conflicting, nuanced way that will ring familiar to Americans whose parents hail from troubled lands. . . . Gorgeous writing . . . A wonderful and affecting read.”—Rasha Madkour, Associated Press
“Gay may be working in space many American readers comprehend through the lyrical stories of Edwidge D
Blood, Love, Immigration in Roxane Gay’s “Ayiti”
"Gay’s stories about the 'first free inky nation' are written with unapologetic realness. Her characters sat beside me, nearby enough to touch."
Ayiti by Roxane Gay. Grove Flatten, 2018. 320 pages.
“GÉRARD SPENDS HIS days thinking about the many reasons he hates America […] the people, the weather, especially the cold.” So begins Roxane Gay’s Ayiti, a compact but powerful limited fiction collection that can be read in one sitting. Originally published by Artistically Declined Press in 2011, Ayiti, recently republished in a new edition, could not be more timely. A disturbingly beautiful mélange illuminating the Haitian diaspora, each piece captures the humanity of a people, boils and all. With daily reports of two-year-olds forcibly removed from their asylum-seeking parents at the Texas border, it is easy to feel disheartened and utterly powerless, to feel that our region has been handed to the devil himself. Reading Gay’s work, holding it in our hands, can transport us from feelings of hopelessness to a place of empowerment. Ayiti draws our attention to immigrant experiences not represented in th
Ayiti recounts the Haitian diaspora in fifteen hard-hitting fleeting stories, bound together by the themes of immigration, abuse, identity and belonging. A fourteen-year-old boy moves to America and is taunted by his classmates for his differences. Two lesbian lovers are forced to keep their bond a secret in a territory where homosexuality is stigmatised. A woman survives a massacre at a sugarcane field and her granddaughter grows up repulsed by the smell of sugar. Gay uses the pages of her brief story collection to dissect the Haitian-American experience, tear apart the negative stereotypes of Haiti and its people, and give the land a chance to reclaim its own voice.
Can you believe this is my first Roxane Queer book? I know, I know – I’m as shocked as you are. Despite having had her essay collections Bad Feminist and Not That Terrible on my to-be-read list for a while now, I decided to be a little different and start with one of her lesser known works, Ayiti.
Ayiti is Gay’s debut short story collection, its title meaning ‘Haiti’ in Creole. From the get-go, Gay makes us alert that each of the fifteen stories that reside inside will be untranslated accounts
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Praise
Drawing on her own trial, Gay’s emotionally powerful stories examine the complexities of Haitian identity, and what it means to be a Haitian in America. The US was once a yearned-for destination, but the reality of experience there often doesn’t dwell up to expectations, as we see through the perspectives of a bullied 14-year-old, a student mocked about voodoo, and a man trying to produce it in Miami.
Financial Times, Best Books of 2018: Fiction
Highly dimensioned characters and unforgettable moments . . . Dismantling the glib misconceptions of her complex ancestral home, Gay cuts and thrills. Readers will find her powerful first book difficult to position down.
Booklist
With daily reports of two-year-olds forcibly removed from their asylum-seeking parents at the Texas border, it is easy to sense disheartened and utterly powerless, to feel that our country has been handed to the devil himself. Reading Gay’s work, holding it in our hands, can transport us from feelings of hopelessness to a place of empowerment. Ayiti draws our attention to immigrant experiences not represente
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