Novel
Thémistocle Épaminondas Labasterre
Not translated into English
Frédéric Marcelin · 1901
Synopsis
Monsieur and Madame Labasterre gave their son the first names Thémistocle Épaminondas, in the hope that he would become an orator and one day sit in Parliament. Passionate about history and great men, the young man publishes his first articles with success, despite the warnings of his teacher, Hodelin, and sets out, with the idealism of his age, to fight the bad morals and tyrannies of his time.
Context
The book appeared in Paris in 1901 from Ollendorff, with the subtitle of a small Haitian story; it opens a trilogy devoted to Haitian reality, followed by La Vengeance de Mama in 1902 and Marilisse in 1903. The Haitian publisher Fardin reissued it in 1976, in 1982 and in 1999, and the Presses nationales d'Haïti in 2005. Daniel Desormeaux produced a critical edition in 2017 for the Société des textes français modernes, from Classiques Garnier.
Who it is for
A novel in French, in the public domain, available in a recent critical edition as well as an e-book; it assumes some idea of Haitian political life around 1900.
Prizes and reception
According to Île en île, its author's three novels gave rise to major literary debates; he is counted among the fathers of the Haitian novel.
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