On January 12, 2010, the earth shook in Haiti. In less than 30 seconds, the earthquake engulfed Port-au-Prince, killing more than 250,000 people, injuring 300,000 and leaving more than a million and a half homeless. Homeless Haitians. A country destroyed in the snap of a finger.
“Only the lucky ones were saved. […] We could hear people on their cell phones all along the street, frantically calling for help, giving directions to where they thought they were under the rubble, in the rooms of their houses. We could hear phones ringing and people answering them. Then, fewer and fewer voices reached us. A variety of faint, persistent ringing rose like a wind from beneath the earth, unanswered. We heard our own voices screaming at each other, asking for help, not knowing what to do. »
So remembers Ma Lou, an old merchant who saw the world collapse before her, in Voices / Lightning / Thunder — sublime translation by Chloé Savoie-Bernard of the novel What Storm, What Thunder (Tin House, 2021) — by Myriam JA Chancy; a moving polyphonic story in which ten voices rescued from the burial recount the days which preceded and followed the tragedy, releasing knowledge of the catastrophe, the unspeakable, and hope.
“Initially, I wanted to invent twelve voices, to echo the name that the inhabitants of the capital gave to the earthquake, Doztells the Canadian-Haitian novelist, who lives in the United States, met by The duty on the sidelines of the Montreal Book Fair. They eventually became ten. Ten voices to try to capture all these missing people, all these names which are found nowhere in history. Ten voices to give meaning to something that has no meaning, but also to capture the fact that the reaction to the earthquake and what people suffered was not uniform. I wanted the reader to have an understanding of the complexity of the problem, the importance of communities and the Haitian universe in general. »
A crack in space-time
There we meet Richard, a rich expatriate, manager of a water bottling company; his illegitimate daughter, Anne, an architect who designs affordable housing for an NGO in Rwanda; Léopold, a drug trafficker in love with an escort; Didier, an émigré musician who drives a taxi in Boston; or Sara, a mother haunted by the memory of her three children in a refugee camp.
Rich and poor, displaced people, survivors, witnesses and members of the diaspora, elders and young people. So many unique but interrelated destinies that weave the complex web of Haitian society and economy.
For each of them, Myriam JA Chancy imagined a “before”, a “during” and an “after” the earthquake. “I wanted to capture the crack that the earthquake caused in space-time. We experienced several difficulties in Haiti, whether during the dictatorship or the occupation by the United States in the early 1900s. However, the earthquake, with its extraordinary impact, was completely different. Overnight, whether we live in Haiti or elsewhere, there was a divide. Some people, even if they were still alive, had to deal with the loss of everything they knew. They suddenly found themselves without a future. For those who lived elsewhere, there is no return possible. Their past is gone. They can only look ahead. Everyone must reshape time in their own way. »
An intersectional fight
By beginning, through her characters, a great reflection on mourning, destruction and reconstruction, the writer addresses the socio-political, racial, gender and class fractures which preceded the disaster and which explain the desolation it caused. sown and the difficulty of the Haitian people to recover, almost 15 years later.
“As a Haitian born in Port-au-Prince, I am affected by all these realities and all these issues. Like many families in the region, mine is at the junction of the working class and the bourgeoisie. I wanted to show that Haitian society is struggling with itself to be able to move forward. There is also an imbalance in terms of impact. We can say that an earthquake affects everyone on the same scale, but that’s not real. I placed the working class at the center of the novel, to show how much they have sacrificed to help others, how much they hold the burden of society on their shoulders. »
In Voice / Lightning / Thunder, it is also women who have the role of getting back up, providing assistance, rebuilding the community. “I spent a little time in the displaced person camps after the earthquake,” says the author. I myself saw the women organizing, figuring out how to clean clothes, find water, feed the little ones, help trauma victims. There is a kind of transmission that also takes place between generations, like a sharing of wisdom. »
Finally, the different stories recounted bear witness, with a mixture of anger, irony and incomprehension, to the failure of the international aid efforts deployed in the wake of the tragedy.
“It’s still between 16 and 20 billion dollars that entered Haiti. This aid had no impact at the local level, recalls Myriam JA Chancy. The population currently receives less money than in 2009. How is this possible? It talks about how Haiti is situated globally on economic issues, how the country is exploited for its human and natural resources. There is no development in education, health, infrastructure, which would have an impact on the population, which would be established in concert with a legitimate government. The entire structure of aid must change. »