Winner of the Latin American Studies Association Isis Duarte Book Prize
2024 Longlist OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (Nonfiction)
Harvesting Haiti: Reflections on Unnatural Disasters (2023)
In Harvesting Haiti, Chancy examines the structures that have resulted in Haiti's post-earthquake conditions and reflects at key points after the earthquake on its effects on vulnerable communities. Her essays make clear the importance of sustaining and supporting the dignity of Haitian lives and of creating a better, contextualized understanding of the issues that mark Haitians’ historical and present realities, from gender parity to the vexed relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 was a debilitating event that followed decades of political, social, and financial issues. Leaving over 250,000 people dead, 300,000 injured, and 1.5 million people homeless, the earthquake has had lasting repercussions on a struggling nation. As the post-earthquake political situation unfolded, Myriam Chancy worked to illuminate on-the-ground concerns, from the vulnerable position of Haitian women to the failures of international aid. Originally presented at invited campus talks, published as columns for a newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago, and circulated in other ways, her essays and creative responses preserve the reactions and urgencies of the years following the disaster.
In Harvesting Haiti, Chancy examines the structures that have resulted in Haiti's post-earthquake conditions and reflects at key points after the earthquake on its effects on vulnerable communities. Her essays make clear the importance of sustaining and supporting the dignity of Haitian lives and of creating a better, contextualized understanding of the issues that mark Haitians’ historical and present realities, from gender parity to the vexed relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Praise for Harvesting Haiti
Myriam Chancy’s book—a collection of talks, essays, and interviews on post-2010 Haiti that also includes a poem and a photo essay—offers its readers a chance to avoid the parochial blinders of national history. What would it mean, and how would we see US history differently, if we put the Haitian Revolution where it belongs, at the center of our hemispheric histories? Marx argues, of course, that all history is the history of class struggle. What Chancy’s Harvesting Haiti implicitly argues instead—and what the story of the New World itself suggests—is that all history is the history of Black Liberation. —Jim Hicks, in a review for the The Massachusetts Review
Harvesting Haiti is a profound reflection of the author’s critical engagement with the human condition in Haiti and about the concerns and demands of the Haitian people. With literary clarity and intellectual brilliance, Myriam J. A. Chancy writes about Haiti with a devotion to ethics and caring. And with the analytical pen of a scholar-activist, she defends the sovereignty and autonomy of Haiti, the rights and self-determination of Haitian women and girls, and the dignity and humanity of the Haitian people. This book is an essential read! —Célucien L. Joseph, Indian River State College, author of Thinking in Public: Faith, Secular Humanism, and Development in Jacques Roumain
Harvesting Haiti takes the reader on an intimate journey to bear witness to the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that forever changed Haiti. Centering the dignity of Haitian lives, Chancy’s powerful essays and poetry stand against the silencing of Haitian history. It gives voice to the agency and tenacity of Haitian people, drawing connections between Haiti’s historical role as the first Black Republic in the Western Hemisphere and its present. This is a timely and necessary book that urges us to reframe discussions of Haiti–historically rooted in global anti-Blackness–in order to claim space to dream of a 'Haiti for Haitians.' —Marisel C. Moreno, University of Notre Dame, author of Crossing Waters: Undocumented Migration in Hispanophone Caribbean and Latinx Literature and Art
Harvesting Haiti offers invaluable guidance to the international community responding to Haiti’s appeal for assistance in restoring peace within the country. —Latina Republic