Ayiti

Artistically Declined Press, 2011

The debut collection from the vibrant voice of Roxane Gay is a unique blend of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, all interwoven to represent the Haitian diaspora experience.

Buy the book

IndieBound, Powell’s City of Books, Barnes & Noble

Praise

Ayiti, fifteen stories about Haiti, its people, and Diaspora, serve as a compelling and arresting window into the Haitian experience. These are powerful stories written with verve.

Ethel Rohan • Cut Through the Bone

Haiti has long been the most interesting country in the Americas. Its better scribes, among them Edwidge Danticat, Franketienne, Madison Smartt Bell, Lyonel Trouillot, Marie Vieux Chavet, have produced some of the best literature in the world. Add to their ranks Roxane Gay, a bright and shining star.

Kyle Minor • In the Devil’s Territory

In this brief but powerful collection of stories, Haitians navigate their beleaguered homeland or their adopted country as immigrants, refugees, and undocumented border crossers pining for their loved ones left ‘kneeling in a bed of sand and bones’ in one of the world’s poorest nations. Gay doesn’t shy away from critique, showing how Haiti’s misfortunes appeal to the exploitative foreign media and well-meaning though condescending outsiders: ‘Then the world intruded. It always does.’

Rigoberto González • The Mariposa Club

Reviews