Ready to Burst

"Haiti's most important writer."-- The New York Times "His work can speak to the most intellectual person in the society as well as the most humble. It's a very generous kind of genius he has, one I can't imagine Haitian literature ever existing without."--Edwidge Danticat Should he scream? Call for help? His mouth was full of saliva. His tongue heavy... The breath and spit of his pursuers were burning his head. The awful stench of their breath, a stinging vapor, was scorching his ears, drying his skin. Smell of sulphur. The acid of their bite. Their forked claws were already lacerating his back. If only I had the time to make it to St. Joseph's Gate where I might find some people. Some help. O agile foot of my rebellious youth! Haven't I always given you the choice morsel of whatever I've eaten? Haven't I given you the longest sip of whatever I've drunk? Run faster nimble foot of the songs of yesteryear! If ill should come to me, I will blame you... My mother will suffer... If I die... And what about my Solange, my sweetheart? Will I never see her again? A portrait of "the extreme bitterness of doom in the face of the blind machinery of power." In vivid, fluid prose, Ripe to Burstfollows the lives of two young men and their individual attempts to make sense of the deeply troubled society surrounding them. A biting critique of the "brain drain" prompted by the François Duvalier dictatorship, Frankétienne mirrors the spirit and failings of the 1960s generation. Widely recognized as Haiti's most important literary figure, Frankétiennehas written more than thirty plays, poetry collections, and works of fiction, including Dezafi, the first modern novel written entirely in Haitian Creole.

 • Author Bio: Born in 1936 in Ravine-Sèche, Haiti, Frankétienne is a prolific novelist, painter, playwright, musician and poet. Widely recognized as Haiti's most important literary figure and an outspoken challenger of political oppression, Frankétienne was a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. The New York Times has called Frankétienne "the Father of Haitian Letters." He has a unique style, often blending French and Haitian Creole and inventing new words.

 • Translator: Kaiama L. Glover received a B.A. in French History and Literature and Afro-American Studies from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in French and Romance Philology from Columbia University. She is now an associate professor of French at Barnard College. Professor Glover's book, Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon (Liverpool UP 2010), addresses the general issue of canon formation in the francophone Caribbean and the particular fate of the Haitian Spiralist authors vis-à-vis this canon.