Stella: A Novel of the Haitian Revolution by Émeric Bergeaud

Abstract

Reviewed by: Stella: A Novel of the Haitian Revolution by Émeric Bergeaud Cassander L. Smith (bio) Stella: A Novel of the Haitian Revolution émeric bergeaud Translated and edited by lesley s. curtis and christen mucher New York: New York University Press, 2015 195 pp. Given the linguistic barriers that often impede the work of studying multilingual archives, such as that of the Haitian Revolution, Lesley S. [End Page 533] Curtis and Christen Mucher have performed crucial scholarly work by making available to Anglophone scholars of the early Americas an edited translation of Haiti’s first novel, Émeric Bergeaud’s Stella. This Francophone novel, published in 1859 in Paris, is set during the Haitian Revolution and reimagines that revolution from the perspective of two enslaved brothers—Romulus and Remus. The brothers embark on a heroic quest to vindicate the brutal murder of their mother at the hands of a cruel slave master referred to simply as the Colonist. As the story unfolds, their quest for personal vengeance transforms into a fight for liberty for the island’s indigène population. Inspired by the divine presence of the title character, Stella, who provides spiritual and maternal guidance, the brothers lead a revolution and build a nation. Through the figures of Romulus, Remus, and Stella, Bergeaud creates an origin story for Haiti. Stella is a rich text that captures the tumultuousness of the Haitian Revolution by addressing a number of topics. Those topics include fratricide and familial relations, women’s role in nation building, intraracial conflict and colorism, and economic viability in the wake of enslavement and revolution. The novel remained out of print for more than a century. Curtis and Mucher explain in their introduction to the text that their goal in making this French-language novel available to English readers is to “offer a new population of readers the opportunity to fully engage with this unique text, its historical context, and its political aims” (xxxi). To facilitate readers’ ability to “fully engage” with the novel, Curtis and Mucher include a thirty-page introduction that provides a brief historical overview of the Haitian Revolution and biographical information for Bergeaud. In addition, they contextualize Stella within a Haitian—and larger American—literary tradition, arguing that the novel is significant as “one of the few positive representations of the Haitian revolution written in the nineteenth century” and “one of the first fictionalizations of the Haitian Revolution to be written by a Haitian” (xxiv). Before Bergeaud’s novel, as the editors note, Haiti’s history was written from “the viewpoint of Europeans” (xxiv). For the most part, Curtis and Mucher succeed in creating a translated text that is both accessible and fluid in its prose. To facilitate readers’ ability to navigate the text, the editors include notes and a short glossary of French terms and expressions that were left untranslated in the text, which preserves the essence of the original work. This translation should prove a useful resource for those early Americanists specializing in colonial, Caribbean, [End Page 534] transatlantic, slavery, and revolutionary studies. The translation also is useful for its potential intertextual readings with Anglophone texts, such as Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1688), William Earle’s Obi; or, The History of Three-Fingered Jack (1800), or Frederick Douglass’s novella “The Heroic Slave,” (1852) to name a few examples. The translation, however, does not provide much of the extratextual material that one might expect given the editors’ goal of introducing a Francophone novel to an Anglophone readership. For example, annotations for the novel are scarce and at times appear more pedantic than truly informative. In addition, the translation would have benefited from the inclusion of maps, a chronology of the Haitian Revolution, and maybe even a contextual discussion of the twin brothers Romulus and Remus at the center of the origin myth of Rome, which so clearly informed Bergeaud’s literary imagination. Having this supplemental material would have been especially helpful for those newly exposed to early Haitian literature and for those wanting to teach Bergeaud’s novel to undergraduates. These are minor issues to be sure. Curtis’s and Mucher’s translation of Bergeaud’s Stella is a solid effort. Cassander L. Smith...