Six years ago, the poet and Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott passed away at eighty-seven, leaving a corpus of verses about the Caribbean, the sea, and love. The prolific writer not only described the alluring and ever-changing landscape of the Caribbean present but the horrific tragedy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. His poetry breathed a place where Indigenous people were massacred, Africans were brought to work endlessly, and European tourists have begun to use it as their playground. His poetry brought life to a region whose archive lived amongst the population, i.e., saturated in the West African syncretic religions of Santeria & Voodoo and the Creole languages that persist on the Anglophone, Francophone and Dutch Islands. Not only do the people from Jamaica, Haiti, Aruba, and St. Lucia hold on to these members, Walcott managed to show how the sea--in its contours, waves, and dimensions--provides a glimpse into history. As he noted in the poem, "The Sea is History":
Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that gray vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History.
In The Haitian Trilogy, he captured the revolutionary spirit of the Black slave uprising on the Island of Hispaniola. This text was a testament to a revolution that historians so often overlook and pointed to the political tensions and concerns in the aftermath of liberation. Where should power lie? How does one transition to freedom? Jean Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe appear as the main figures who appear flawed in their political squabbles and humane in their attempt to make a country anew. Religious sculptures and aristocratically hungry people are the villains, while the mostly slightly Black majority is being rooted for. The Haitian Trilogy picks up from the lively fervour of C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, yet it often comes across as more sanitised and less political. Yet, what Walcott provided in his capacity as a poet and playwright is the flexibility to add dimension to these characters.
Literature can provide strength and reprieve when the world is harrowing. Walcott's legacy will live on because he offered hope and beauty for a region whose resilience lies in the aftermath of forced migration and enslavement. As a Haitian-American woman, Black Caribbean writers such as Aimé Cesaire, Audre Lorde, Claudia Jones, and Frantz Fanon were part of my upbringing and tradition. They were the forebearers who gave me hope in internationalism and radical politics. Derek Walcott was part of a generation of writers who used their craft to bring light to the world--while also witnessing the Civil Rights movement from afar. May his legacy and those fighting for internationalism, beauty, and the sea continue to honour his works.
Some News
My forthcoming book, A History of the World in Six Plagues, will be published with Simon & Schuster next year. The manuscript examines confinement's role in fostering and hindering epidemics. The manuscript traces the long history of viral outbreaks under conditions of social confinement—the plantation system, colonial camps, imprisonment, quarantine, the factory—revealing how these enclosed spaces fuel epidemics. Here’s the book cover.
Who decides what happens after sex? The last decade has seen arguments over women’s reproductive freedom reminiscent of the 1960s and 1970s. Alice Spawls (co-editor of the London Review of Books) and I have co-edited a volume, After Sex, a book about reproductive freedom. The text provides personal and political perspectives from the mid-twentieth century to the present, setting feminist classics alongside contemporary accounts and highlighting the experiences of women of colour and working-class women.
If you can, please pre-order A History of the World in Six Plagues and After Sex.
A Word
Earlier this month, I published two articles were especially. For Esquire Magazine, I wrote a nonfiction essay that explores how Haiti is perceived and what it means to live in the country today. My title, “Those Who Remain in Haiti—and Those who Leave,” was inspired by Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series. As someone who has left my hometown (Miami) and my country of birth (settler colonial United States), I feel like Lenú. However, Haitian descent also complicates what home means and where I fit in.
Another text that took part of the spring to compose is my essay for a special essay of The Nation entitled “Without Apology: Abortion in Literature.” For the first time in my life, my name was on a magazine cover
Do you like plantains? If so, read my short essay in Vittles Substack, where I explore what it means to run away and find my way through my aunt’s cooking.
As some of you may know, I love electronic music, so I interviewed a prolific musician and writer. Thus, I wrote this profile about DJ artist Paul Purgas for Frieze Magazine.
Some Afro-Asian scholars are working on finding the aesthetic language for fungi. One of those people is architectural scientist, designer, and educator Mae-ling Lokko for Contemporary & about agro-waste, fungi, and her evolution as an artist.
If you cannot access the article and want to read the text, please email me, and I will send you a pdf of the document.
A Read
Here’s a list of books I’ve read so far this month. Since I am deep into book edits, the reading happens when I’m alone in the garden of Tempelhofer Feld or sitting next to the Landwehrkanal.
Clemens Meyer, While We Were Dreaming
Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto
McKenzie Wark, Love and Money, Sex and Death: A Memoir (reviewer’s copy)
These texts have been both a distraction and a testament to how great writing can provide a great escape.
With Radical Joy,