The Rainy Season: Haiti—Then and NowConsidered the best book ever written about Haiti, now updated with a New Introduction, “After the Earthquake,” features first hand-reporting from Haiti weeks after the 2010 earthquake. Through a series of personal journeys, each interwoven with scenes from Haiti’s extraordinary past, Amy Wilentz brings to life this turbulent and fascinating country. Opening with her arrival just days before the fall of Haiti’s President-for-Life, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Wilentz captures a country electric with the expectation of change: markets that bustle by day explode with gunfire at night; outlaws control country roads; farmers struggle to survive in a barren land; and belief in voodoo and the spirits of the ancestors remains as strong as ever. The Rainy Season demystifies Haiti—a country and a people in cruel and capricious times. From the rebel priest Father Aristide and the street boys under his protection to the military strongmen who pass through the revolving door of power into the gleaming white presidential palace—and the buzzing international press corps members who jet in for a coup and leave the minute it’s over—Wilentz’s Haiti haunts the imagination. |
From inside the book
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... find him : when I was first writing about Haiti and imagining this book , in late 1985 , at the end of the Duvalier dynasty's rule , I had plenty of sources : an army general , friends in the elite , a bunch of families down in the ...
... find him : when I was first writing about Haiti and imagining this book , in late 1985 , at the end of the Duvalier dynasty's rule , I had plenty of sources : an army general , friends in the elite , a bunch of families down in the ...
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... small fortune. Now he'll be able to feed his wife and his three-year-old son, if he can find food to buy and if he can supplement the money with little jobs here and there. Frantz is twenty - nine years old and right now he is.
... small fortune. Now he'll be able to feed his wife and his three-year-old son, if he can find food to buy and if he can supplement the money with little jobs here and there. Frantz is twenty - nine years old and right now he is.
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... find— three huge , enormously heavy , ( doubtless ) hundred - year - old wooden beams that he'd inched out bit by bit from the collapsed building we all were standing in front of . He could barely walk and yet he managed to heave those ...
... find— three huge , enormously heavy , ( doubtless ) hundred - year - old wooden beams that he'd inched out bit by bit from the collapsed building we all were standing in front of . He could barely walk and yet he managed to heave those ...
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... find their usual dealers . Then , they have to go into the slums to get whatever they can find . A Mercedes will pull right up to a shabby concrete house on a main road in a slum , and a young mulatto will get out and start talking to ...
... find their usual dealers . Then , they have to go into the slums to get whatever they can find . A Mercedes will pull right up to a shabby concrete house on a main road in a slum , and a young mulatto will get out and start talking to ...
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... find jobs that weren't there , and everyone's kids ; it seemed like about a dozen . Djo's house in Cité Soleil , the country's most populous slum , doesn't have the space for all these people , so usually when night falls they do a ...
... find jobs that weren't there , and everyone's kids ; it seemed like about a dozen . Djo's house in Cité Soleil , the country's most populous slum , doesn't have the space for all these people , so usually when night falls they do a ...
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Common terms and phrases
American Aristide Aristide's armed Army asked attack Avril Ayiti barricade began Benito bidonville bishops Boutilliers boys called Cap-Haïtien Carrefour Casernes charcoal Chavannes church Cité Soleil clairin Colonel countryside coup coup d'état courtyard Creole crowd dancing Dechoukaj Dessalines dollars drums Duvalier Duvalier's Duvalierists elections foreign François François Duvalier French friends front girls Gonaïves gunfire guns Haiti Haitian hand head houngan Jean-Claude Jean-Claude Duvalier Jean-Rabel jeep Jolicoeur journalists junta killed knew laughed Legliz live looked machetes Manigat Marc Bazin massacre Mimette mulatto Namphy Namphy's night Ogoun Oloffson palace Paul peasants peristyle Pétionville photographer pigs political Port-au-Prince priest Prosper Avril Radio Soleil rain road Salesian Saline says Senatorial Candidate slaves slums smiled soldiers St.-Jean-Bosco stopped street talk tap-tap tell Titid told Tontons Macoute town trees truck turned voodoo Waldeck watched women young zombi