From <em>Dezafi</em> and <em>Les Affres d’un défi</em>

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Haitian novelist-poet-pHysicist-matHematician-painter Franketienne is co-founder, with Jean-Claude Fignole and Rene Philoctete, of the late twentieth century aesthetic philosophy of Spiralism. Spiralism is a veritable cri de cœur from within the space of Francois Duvalier’s Haiti and out to the wider world; it is an approach to literature that evokes the possibilities for self-realization available to the individual even in repressive situations. The selections below are excerpted from Franketienne’s novels Dezafi (1975) and Les Affres d’un defi (1979). The former work is the first novel written in Haitian Creole and the latter is its rewriting, though not its translation, in French. The plot of both novels is the same: the citizens of Bois-Neuf live in total submission to the evil Vodou sorcerer Sintil/Saintil and his henchman Zofe/Zofer. Klodonis/Clodonis, a young student whose educated “impudence” threatens Saintil’s power, has been turned into a zombie by the sorcerer and made to work alongside other zombies in rice fields. In so “zombifying” Klodonis, Sintil effectively issues a warning to any and all who would oppose him, and so solidifies his control over Bois Neuf. Saintil’s daughter, Siltana/ Sultana, falls in love with Klodonis, however, and wakes him from his zombified state by giving him salt. Klodonis distributes salt to the other zombies, who then awaken and cry out for vengeance. Inspired by Klodonis’ call for collective action, the villagers, too, are roused from their state of submissiveness and ally themselves with the bois nouveaux [new wood]—both the expression used to designate reanimated zombies and, of course, the appropriate term for the citizens of Bois Neuf. Unified and powerful, this newly revitalized community—led by former zombies—destroys Sintil and begins to look toward the future with hope.