November 5, 2018

Read Caribbean @ Miami Book Fair 2018

Miami Book Fair



ReadCaribbean programming features extensive Caribbean-specific events, including readings and panel discussions, storytelling for children, music and more, plus publishers at Street Fair. When appropriate, author events will take place in Creole or French with simultaneous translation into English.

A very special thank you to Jan Mapou, Myrtha Wroy, Jerry Delince, Cergine Cator, and Sherley Louis members, of Sosyete Koukouy who collaborate with Miami Book Fair on ReadCaribbean programs, including the Little Haiti Book Festival, that takes place annually in May. Established in 1985, Sosyete Koukouy is dedicated to preserving Haitian culture in the United States . Their mission is the preservation, perpetuation and presentation of Haitian cultural performances and exhibitions, to Creole and non-Creole-speaking audiences.

After Irma, After Maria: Caribbean Women Writing the Storms
Saturday, November 17 @ 11:30 am
Room 8301 [Building 8, 3rd Floor)

Modern Caribbean literature captures not just the endemic mismanagement of natural resources and public projects, but also the enduring chasm between promises of progress through major infrastructures and the outcomes of natural disasters for average citizens. 

In this panel, four Caribbean writers reflect on the devastation from Hurricanes Irma and Maria to many Caribbean islands whose economies rely on tourism; they pay considerable attention to the Caribbean bodies caught in the crosscurrents of a catastrophic natural history. With Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Loretta Collins Klobah (Puerto Rico), Tiphanie Yanique (Virgin Islands), and Jessica Pabón-Colón (Puerto Rico).

Unknown Histories of the Caribbean
Saturday, November 17 @ 1:30 pm
Room 8301 [Building 8, 3rd Floor)

This panel will discuss how writers from the Caribbean have attempted to construct alternative images of the present and future from the histories of slavery and colonialism that haunt the Caribbean and its diasporas. In parallel with these invented stories, archival registers give unexpected details of the unknown histories of the Caribbean and allow for scrupulously researched literary works to emerge alongside tales of imagination. 

With Natalie Hopkinson (Guyana), author of A Mouth is Always Muzzled; Patrick Bellegarde-Smith (Haiti), author of In the Shadow of Powers; Dantes Bellegarde in Haitian Social Thought; Michael Barnett (Jamaica), author of The Rastafari Movement: A North American and Caribbean Perspective, and Judy Raymond (Trinidad), author of The Colour of Shadows. Moderated by Donna Aza Weir-Soley, author of Eroticism, Spirituality, and Resistance in Black Women’s Writings.


Murder and Mayhem in the Caribbean
Saturday, November 17 @ 3:30 pm
Room 8301 [Building 8, 3rd Floor)

Writers with roots in Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Trinidad and Tobago present masterful and unvarnished literary crime fiction and wildly transgressive noir from the Caribbean. With Kevin Jared Hosein, The Repenters and The Beast of Kukuyo; Hector Duarte Jr., Desperate Times Call, and Nicholas Laughlin, editor of the anthology, So Many Islands. Moderated by Manny Duran.


ReadCaribbean Presents Adventures for Kids
Saturday, November 17 @ 4:00 pm
Wembly's Author Tent
Upper plaza of Children’s Alley

Two friends search for a long-lost quilt patch in Marjuan Canady’s Callaloo: The Trickster and the Magic Quilt; an Arctic seal tries to get back home in Joanne C. Hillhouse’s Lost!, and discoveries abound during a simple walk through the neighborhood in Paula-Anne Porter Jones’ Sandy, Tosh and the Moo Cow, and a family’s history comes alive in Francie Latour’s Auntie Luce’s Talking Paintings.


Reading Jamaica
Saturday, November 17 @ 5:30 pm
Room 8301 [Building 8, 3rd Floor]

Reading stories that explore such themes as racial identity, gender and sexuality, family and alienation, exile and history, this panel brings to life the richness and diversity of writing from and/or about Jamaica. With Marcia Douglas, author of The Marvellous Equations of the Dread: A Novel in Bass Riddim, Alecia McKenzie, author of Sweetheart, and Alexia Arthurs, author of How to Love a Jamaican. Moderated by Geoffrey Philp, author of Garvey’s Ghost.


Haitian Identities and Caribbean Aesthetics/ Idantite Ayisyen Ak Estetik Karibeyen
Sunday, November 18 @ 11:30 am
Room 8301 [Building 8, 3rd Floor)

In English with simultaneous interpretation into Haitian Creole

This panel of four Haitian women writers will address the impact of their Haitian and Haitian-American identity(ies) on their writing and the ways they navigate (hyper)visibility and erasure to honor Caribbean aesthetics. Join Marilène Phipps, author of Unseen Worlds; Katia D. Ulysse, author of Mouths Don’t Speak, and Fabienne Josaphat, author of Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow, as they discuss the ways in which their writings respond to cultural presumptions about Haitian identity. Moderated by Edwidge Danticat.


Compelling Stories from the French Caribbean/Des Histoires Captivantes de la CaraÏbe Française
Sunday, November 18 @ 1:30 pm
Room 8301 [Building 8, 3rd Floor)

In French with simultaneous interpretation into English

Writers from the French Caribbean create and chisel narratives that are vibrant and compelling as their Caribbean identity shapes and informs the stories they choose to tell. 

This panel will focus on choices writers make in telling and reporting stories that embody the depth and breadth of French-Caribbean life and imagination. With Gerty Dambury (Guadeloupe), author of The Restless;  Mehdi Chalmers (Haiti), author of À Partir du mensonge; Monique Clesca (Haiti), author of La Confession; and Serge Bilé (Martinique), author of Yasuké (a true story about the first recorded Japanese black samurai). Moderated by Vanessa Selk, Cultural and Education Attaché (Florida and Puerto Rico) of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.

ReadCaribbean Presents Three Groundbreaking Poets
Sunday, November 18 @ 1:30 pm
Room 6100 [Building 6, 1st Floor]

Ruth Behar explores the sacrifices of her exiled Cuban ancestors alongside her own vulnerabilities in Everything I Kept/Todo Lo Que Guardé. Loretta Collins Klobah reveals the secret heart of Puerto Rico in Ricantations, where shiny modernity gives way to spirit presences before and after Hurricane Maria. I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara is Rajiv Mohabir’s translation of the only known literary work written in 1916 by an indentured servant in British Guyana.


The Realities of Haitian Migrations
Sunday, November 18 @ 3:30 pm
Room 8301 [Building 8, 3rd Floor]

In Haitian Creole with simultaneous interpretation into English

Individuals who migrate often experience the loss of cultural norms, religious customs, and social support systems. The adjustment to a new culture brings forth changes in identity and concept of self. In the case of Haiti, how do these changes affect the motherland – and the Haitian communities of the Diaspora?
In this panel, academics and experts in the literary field will speak to the issue of Haitian migration, racial, gender, and national identity, and ultimately, of life in the balance. With Pauris Jean-Baptiste (writer), Pierre Buteau (historian), Inéma Jeudi (journalist), and Claude Charles (ethnologist). Moderated by Marleine Bastien, Executive Director of FANM


#MeToo Movement in the Afro-Caribbean Communities
Sunday, November 18 @ 5:30 pm
Room 8301 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)

In many African-Caribbean communities, reactions to the #MeToo movement often reflect a lack of adequate thought about abuse; in fact, these reactions can even indicate increasing levels of gender-based violence as a norm. Women brave enough to come out with their ordeals are often silenced or made to face backlash for their choice to demand justice. Academics and writing professionals will discuss the blurry lines between abuse and what is considered “normal” gender relations and “natural”’ male behavior in Haiti and other African-Caribbean countries, and present ideas on ways that literature can support the women in impoverished/conflict countries. With Judite Blanc (research psychologist), Monique Clesca (UN Specialist), Marlene Chouloute-Hyppolite (writer), and Georges Bossous (human rights activist). Moderated by Anaïse Chavenet (literary publicist). [In Haitian Creole with simultaneous interpretation into English]

For more information, please follow this link: https://www.miamibookfair.com/programs/


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