Essay
So Spoke the Uncle
Ainsi parla l'Oncle
Jean Price-Mars · 1928
Synopsis
An ethnographic essay that reproaches the Haitian elite for its “collective bovarysm”: it sees itself as coloured Frenchmen and despises what comes from Africa. The author studies instead the folklore of the people, the legends, tales, songs, riddles, beliefs and ceremonies, the Creole language of the peasants and Vodou, which he defends as a religion in its own right, and maintains that a national literature can be born of this heritage.
Context
The book was published in 1928, printed in Compiègne, during the American occupation of Haiti, which lasted from 1915 to 1934; according to the preface, its chapters take up lectures that the author reworked for the edition. Britannica sees in it the ambition of restoring to the Haitian people the dignity of its folklore. Island Luminous links it to the indigenist movement, launched in the 1920s. It was reissued in Port-au-Prince in 1954, in Montreal in 1973 and in 2009, and Magdaline W. Shannon translated it into English in 1983.
Who it is for
An essay in French of about two hundred and fifty pages, reissued in 2009 and translated into English; it requires some idea of Haitian history.
Prizes and reception
Its author is regarded as the initiator of Haitian indigenism, a movement born under the American occupation.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.