Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a blending of genres and themes which may seem at times overwhelming but is a style that I choose deliberately. I call it the tyaka style. Indeed, just like tyaka - a Haitian dish made from a mixture of corn, beans, pumpkin, coconut milk, meat, spices, etc., to give a final and delicious meal -, I mix in this book different and apparently incompatible ingredients to compose a final product with varied flavor and aesthetic, highlighting each of its elements while projecting a qualitative complexity of the whole.
I write this book mostly in Haitian and I add an "Anèks / Annexe" at the end aligning selected texts both translated and untranslated. For me, it is always important to demonstrate the performative force of the popular language. Although the two languages - French and Haitian commonly known as Creole - are recognized by the 1987 constitution as the two official languages of the Republic of Haiti, the use of the latter continues to be dominated by the former in most important activities and social spheres, such as publishing, school, writing, university, finance, state administration, etc. This book conveys the point and shows Haitian is indeed a complete language, a language totalkapital (total-capital), as they say there.
