Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2009
416 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
Suppressed immediately upon publication in 1968 and finally released in France in 2005, this stunning trilogy, brilliantly introduced by Edwidge Danticat, is a scathing response to the powerful racial, sexual, and class struggles that rule Haiti.
In Love, three sisters entangle themselves in each other's love lives, creating a complicated family dynamic that echoes the growing chaos outside of the house. In Anger, the daughter of a middle-class family terrorized by paramilitaries agrees to prostitute herself to save the others, but the guilt that ensues upon the sale of her body and soul reveals the profound fissures among them. And finally, Madness paints a terrifying portrait of a Haitian town that has been ravaged by troops. A young poet, trapped in his house for days without food, becomes obsessed with the souls of the dead that surround him. Love, Anger, Madness is an extraordinary, brave, and searing evocation of a country in turmoil.
"Often called a trilogy, Love, Anger, and Madness is actually a triptych of three thematically connected novellas. .... Despite its severe criticism of Haitian society, Love, Anger, and Madness is also very much a testament to a beloved country. Vieux-Chauvet’s tender and sympathetic descriptions of both the landscape and the people (on all sides of its complicated conflict) make this triptych a powerful emotional journey through a ravaged but well-loved landscape." - The Quarterly Conversation - Michelle Bailat-Jones
This information about Love, Anger, Madness was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Marie Vieux-Chauvet, a seminal writer of post-occupation Haiti, was born in Port-au-Prince in 1916 and died in New York in 1973. She is the author of five novels, including Dance on the Volcano, Fonds des Nègres, Fille d’Haiti, and Les Rapaces.
Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokur have translated two novels by Patrick Chamoiseau, Solibo Magnificent and Texaco, the latter of which won the American Translators Association Galantière Prize for Best Book. Their translation of Love, Anger, Madness was supported by a Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
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