Book Review: Ayiti by Roxane Gay

 

This was a book which I started reading years ago. And for reasons which I don't really want to get into here, it took me years to get this book back and finally be able to read it.

So, how was it?

Well, I enjoyed it. In fact, there were parts of this book which I actually enjoyed immensely. 

The title of the book itself is the way to pronounce Haiti, the country which Gay is originally from. She speaks of the experiences of her fellow Haitians both on the island nation, as well as the experiences of those Haitians who have made it here in the United States. Everywhere, you see poverty and hunger and suffering. You feel the anger of a young Haitian immigrant who is largely unimpressed and resentful of everything about his new country, only to find out that his classmates have been mocking him, giving him even more reason (and justification) for his resentment.

Everywhere, you see hopelessness and despair and an understandable desire to escape, no matter what the cost. People suffering from poverty inside of Haiti, people suffering from poverty once they finally get to the land of milk and honey, only to find that they themselves are unable to obtain any share of all that wealth they see all around them, then lying about how they have made it to their family back home, and lying about how they are in the process of bringing the family here, as well. There is the longing to escape Haiti, which seems to be viewed by many of the characters as a cursed country. A country of paradoxes, with modern workplaces, where employees then return to their impoverished shacks and hopeless lives after business hours are over.

Yet, mentioning all that is a bit deceptive, because it is much more than that. Despite the clear and obvious ugliness which the author capably describes, the misery and hopelessness, there is also a beauty within these pages. There is the beauty of love, of sexual intimacy, of hope. There is an experience that is very human, and very real, despite this being fiction.

In short, I very much enjoyed this book. It is not always a pleasant read, admittedly. After all, a book about so much human suffering cannot always be pleasant.

Still, it is a book that wakes you up to the reality of a country which we too often overlook, or ignore altogether. A people who have reason to be proud, as the first independent black nation, and also the first nation to permanently abolish slavery. Yet paradoxically, it is a country which remains enslaved in a very real sense by the inescapable poverty that is everywhere on the island. You also get to see just how Americans can come across there, how the United States at once seems like the land where dreams can come true, yet also how American tourists come across as loud and entitled and crass and, frankly, obnoxious. 

This is an important book. It is also a short one. You can probably read this in one sitting, if you are so inclined. I didn't, but it is not a book that takes long to read. But it is a book which you should read, if nothing else just to understand the reality that not everyone is privileged and blessed as we are. This book helps to put just how good we have it into perspective. And it makes you, the reader, aware that the poverty of a place like Haiti, a country that just cannot seem to ever get a break, is not just some faraway news story that you glimpse every now and then on the evening news after a coup attempt or serious gang warfare or a massive earthquake. It should not merely be dismissed as some "shithole nation" as one former American president so charmingly put it. Haiti is real. Haitians are real, and so is their plight, their experience, and their humanity. And this book allows us to see them in a very different light. 

Highly recommended.