Memoir of an Amnesiac

by Jan J. Dominique, translated by Irline François

foreword by Edwidge Danticat

Now available in English, this remarkable narrative of exile, loss, memory and imagination resonates with its readers. The author draws upon her traumatic experiences growing up under the dictatorship of François Duvalier in this exploration of psychological and political oppression and exile.

Memoir of an Amnesiac is a work of several dimensions: memoir, novel, roman à clef. In one facet it is an especially privileged and personal view of the Haitian journalist Jean Dominique, redoubtable until his assassination in the year 2000. In another, it is a sophisticated study of the paradoxical relationship between memory and fabrication. In a third, it is a veiled but vivid account of life under a regime which suppresses not only action and speech but also thought. This fluent translation by Irline François has made a somewhat challenging French text not only accessible but even seductive to American readers.─Madison Smartt Bell, professor of English, Goucher College, author of Toussaint Louverture: A Biography 

305 pp., softcover, 6 x 9 inches. 

Cat. #: B477 
ISBN #: 9781584324732