10/24/2016
Originally published in 1957, Vieux-Chauvet’s novel of 18th-century Haiti unpacks race and class relations through the story of a talented but persecuted singer. Minette is a mulatto woman with a singing voice incomparable in all of Haiti. From a young age, her talent is nurtured by a local theater patron, who plans to cause a scandal by presenting her as the first black performer Port-au-Prince has ever seen. However, as Minette will soon find out, her benefactress’ motives are not completely pure. Minette will have a difficult struggle ahead in her quest to be taken seriously as a singer, a lover, and a free woman in a time when racial prejudice and classism trump all law and reason. Vieux-Chauvet’s novel is that rare gem that takes an ambitious scope and successfully captures the social and political turmoil of a country at war. The story’s pacing suffers as the later chapters develop at a breakneck speed, lacking transitions between major events. But those interested in Haitian history, deep explorations of social injustice, and courageous, determined heroines will find much to enjoy in Vieux-Chauvet’s masterly tale. (Dec.)
"Trying to weave a fairy tale life from a horror story reality, Vieux-Chauvet’s heroine, Minette, rides her beauty and talent out of poverty in late-18th-century Port-au-Prince to fame onstage as a singer... [An] important book, best read as a slice of Haiti’s past rather than as a work of fiction." — The New York Times Book Review
A "vivid, heartbreaking epic . . . Vieux-Chauvet is a tremendously gifted storyteller, compared to the likes of Tolstoy. Her work highlights the lasting trauma of racial and class oppression — detailing the ripple effects that spread from one person to the next, and infect one generation after another. But it also shows humanity’s struggle to emerge from the ashes of this hatred, and find love and beauty again ... [a] remarkable work of fiction, which will introduce a new generation of readers to Vieux-Chauvet’s exquisite writing, and its courageous calls for justice." — The Toronto Star
"In Dance on the Volcano, Marie Vieux-Chauvet—one of Haiti’s finest novelists—has given us an exquisitely written portrait of Haiti’s social and political climate, one that's still eerily resonant 300 years later." — Kevin Nguyen, GQ
"Vieux-Chauvet’s novel is that rare gem that takes an ambitious scope and successfully captures the social and political turmoil of a country at war . . . Those interested in Haitian history, deep explorations of social injustice, and courageous, determined heroines will find much to enjoy in Vieux-Chauvet’s masterly tale." — Publishers Weekly
"Marie Vieux-Chauvet's Dance on the Volcano stands with Tolstoy's War and Peace, The Known World by Edward P. Jones, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, Robert Graves's I, Claudius, and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind in its extraordinary power to bring all the nuance and complexity of a long-gone society so vividly before our eyes. With what's going on racially and politically in the United States today, now is an excellent time for this masterpiece to appear in English – and in a translation which does full justice to the great beauty of Vieux-Chauvet's prose." — Madison Smartt Bell
"Kaiama L. Glover’s translation is fluid, remaining faithful to the elegance of Vieux-Chauvet’s prose while navigating the stylistic concerns inherent to recreating a work written in the 1950s and about the colonial life of the 1790s, for a 21st-century audience...Minette’s story, more than anything else, is about having “a seat at the table,” to use the current resignification of that phrase. For a book written about the racial climate of a late 18th-century French colony, there is an eerie familiarity to the questions it raises about how a person of color earns that seat, and what consequences come along with sitting at the table in a world of institutionalized racism." — Bronwyn Averett, The Quarterly Conversation
"[A] vivid, heartbreaking epic . . . Vieux-Chauvet is a tremendously gifted storyteller, compared to the likes of Tolstoy. Her work highlights the lasting trauma of racial and class oppression — detailing the ripple effects that spread from one person to the next, and infect one generation after another. But it also shows humanity’s struggle to emerge from the ashes of this hatred, and find love and beauty again ... [a] remarkable work of fiction, which will introduce a new generation of readers to Vieux-Chauvet’s exquisite writing, and its courageous calls for justice." — Tara Henley, The Toronto Star
"A heroic and triumphant tale of social ascension." — Curtis Small, San Jose State University
"sharp and beautiful. . . A classic piece of historical fiction, few novels can compete with this one’s combination of personal passion and cultural consciousness." — James Crossley, Island Books
"Dance on the Volcano is one of the the rare, or rather the only novel about the events that took place between 1789 and 1804, written in the 20th century in Haiti." — Anja Bandau, Free University of Berlin
"Dance on the Volcano is not limited to historical clichés, but rather opens up the possibility of the fantastic." — Maurice Joseph, University of Haiti
"With the help of translator Kaiama L. Glover, the reader gets a sense of what it was like to be living on that metaphorical “volcano” known as Saint Domingue that eventually erupted...there are moments of beauty throughout the book, especially when Minette is singing. One becomes so convinced of Minette’s ability to enchant that one wishes it came with a soundtrack. Sadly, the real-life Minette died long before the age of recording. However, while the music may be lost to time, thanks to Chauvet’s book, the person who helped to break down racial barriers during a tumultuous time in Haitian history will not be." — Christopher Iacono, Five 2 One Magazine
"The story is soft and cruel, sweet and bitter like the savors of the Caribbean, which make you smile and grit your teeth at once." — Catherine Hermary-Vieille
"Like a knife thrust into the sexual, social, racial, and political passions of a provincial town" — Libération
"In three movements as somber as they are striking, Marie Vieux-Chauvet explodes Hatian society in the time of dictator François Duvalier, in a classic style stripped of all exotic lyricism.... None of the dark forces that shook the country during this tragic period are forgotten in this novel-manifesto, from which no one comes out innocent." — Le Monde
"Chauvet was nitroglycerin. She set her sights on an illness ravaging Haitian society" — Dany Laferrière
"[Dance on the Volcano] is crucial to a complete understanding of the violent conflict that overtook the country, and the revolution’s importance in world history . . . These racial and political images of Haiti more than two centuries ago, written sixty years ago, remain timely today in that nation, and resonate in the United States. In both countries, “a state of perpetual tension … produce(s) a strange heaviness in the atmosphere.” That volcanic tension keeps erupting, here and in Haiti." — Consequence Magazine
