Ayiti
By Roxane Gay
4.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Roxane Gay is an award-winning literary voice praised for her fearless and vivid prose, and her debut collection Ayiti exemplifies the raw talent that made her “one of the voices of our age” (National Post, Canada).
In Ayiti, a married couple seeking boat passage to America prepares to leave their homeland. A young woman procures a voodoo love potion to ensnare a childhood classmate. A mother takes a foreign soldier into her home as a boarder, and into her bed. And a woman conceives a daughter on the bank of a river while fleeing a horrific massacre, a daughter who later moves to America for a new life but is perpetually haunted by the mysterious scent of blood.
From New York Times-bestselling powerhouse Roxane Gay, Ayiti is a powerful collection exploring the Haitian diaspora experience.
Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay is the author of the New York Times bestselling essay collection Bad Feminist; the novel An Untamed State, a finalist for the Dayton Peace Prize; the New York Times bestselling memoir Hunger; and the short story collections Difficult Women and Ayiti. A contributing opinion writer to the New York Times, for which she also writes the “Work Friend” column, she has written for Time, McSweeney’s, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, and Oxford American, among many other publications. Her work has also been selected for numerous Best anthologies, including Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 and Best American Mystery Stories 2014. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. In 2018 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and holds the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University’s Institute for Women’s Leadership.
Read more from Roxane Gay
Bad Feminist: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: Built for This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Difficult Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Take Us to a Better Place: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best American Short Stories 2018 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ayiti Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Untamed State: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Speaking of Work: A Story of Love, Suspense and Paperclips Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dress Like a Woman: Working Women and What They Wore Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: You Are a Teen Mom: Instructions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Drawing Power: Women's Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Best Actress: The History of Oscar®-Winning Women Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waveform: Twenty-First-Century Essays by Women Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Women of the 116th Congress: Portraits of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Ayiti
30 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ayiti by Roxane Gay 2011/2018Grove Roxane Gay is quickly becoming one of my favorite voices in literature. Her use of words are both philosophical and enchanting, her depth of understanding humanity, and people is remarkable and makes for superb writing. Far above average.This short volume of poems and prose share much of her love of the human spirit and the culture and life in Haiti. Not just the abuse and violence, but the energy of its people and the hardcore center its society.This is heartfelt and packs a punch with its personal and incredible words. I love her words. I adore Roxane Gay. She is a much needed voice and energy and I highly recommend anything she has written.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I have tried numerous times before to read this author. Each time I could not handle the in your face realism, brutality that her writing evokes. I saw this, a book of short stories, two new, the others rereleased and thought I'd try once again. Most of these stories are very short, chronicling segments of lives of those from Haiti. They cover alternate expressions of emotions, feeling, sadness next to joy, fear next to courage, brutality next to tenderness. Most stories contain one or more of these opposite feelings.I started her Untamed State, couldn't handle the violence in it, and one of the longest stories in this collection, Sweet on the Tongue, is a preview or shorter version of that book. The shorter page count definitely made these easier for me to read, and I have to admire her writing. She is both a vivid painter of words and fearless in their usage. One does get a broad picture of life in Haiti, their beliefs and yes the violence done to women. The pull of your home country against the fear of the same. I actually feel a little accomplished that I actually managed to finally read through something this author has written. Maybe a little fearless myself.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A book of short stories in which the author- an American of Haitian descent- considers many different aspects of those who left the country...and those who remain.The new life in the States, the stereotypes of voodoo and poverty that many attribute to them, recollections of violence. Some are just a page or two long, which for me rendered them kind of forgettable, despite their literary merit.The strongest was surely "In the Manner of Water and Light" with its moving account of the genocide at Massacre River (covered by Edwidge Danticat in 'The Farrming of Bones.)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow!Powerful. Haunting. Amazing. Haitian-American is not my experience, but I feel through the author's words--hearing them in her own voice figuratively and literally--I got a taste of what it is to live the Haitian-American experience. While I'll never truly know, this collection of short stories makes me wish I could. I wish we could all just immerse ourselves into other cultures so that we could learn from them and appreciate them and our own more.I loved every minute of these stories and only wish there were more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a collection of short stories about Haitian women, in Haiti and in the US. It's read by the author, who has a wonderful voice--in both senses.The background and experience behind these stories is unfamiliar to me and therefore sometimes confusing. Yet the more I listened, the more grounded I felt and more open to enjoying the next story. These are stories of life in a country and setting very different from my own, and stories of an immigrant experience both like and unlike my grandparents' immigrant experience in the first part of the 20th century. They're stories very well-told, and they drew me in.I had no real idea what I would be getting when I picked it from Audible's "two free Audible Originals" offerings for May, but I'm glad I did.General advice: Don't be afraid to try something from a different background. You might get a nice surprise, and you might expand the world of fiction that doesn't seem too foreign to your experience to be likely sources of enjoyment. This isn't the first time I've gotten one of those nice surprises.Recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/515 - 2 + 2 = 15Review of the Audible Audio edition of the 2018 reissue of the Ayiti (2011) originalThis was a great variety of short-short stories and some extended tales which all dealt with aspects of the Haitian diaspora (Ayiti being Haitian Creole for Haiti). Some have humorous turns, others are tales of trauma, tales of love and desire and the importance and love of family. I listened to the Audiobook edition which does require some careful attention as the short short stories sometimes go by in only a few minutes. Another disadvantage to the audio version is not having any references to explain the differences from the 2011 original small press edition.As best as I could find, of the original 15 stories (listed at a library site here (this may not be a permanent link source). 2 of them were deleted in this 2018 version and 2 new stories were added making for 15 as the new total again.So the table of contents is now:1. Motherfuckers2. About my father's accent3. Voodoo child4. There is no "E" in zombi, which means there can be no you or we5. NEW Sweet on the Tonguex DELETED Things I know about fairy talesx DELETED You never know how the waters ran so cruel so deep6. Cheap, fast, filling7. In the manner of water or light8. Lacrimosa9. The harder they come10. All things being relative11. Gracias, Nicaragua y lo sentimos12. The dirt we do not eat13. What you need to know about a Haitian woman14. NEW Of Ghosts and Shadows15. A cool dry place.The new stories Sweet on the Tongue and Of Ghosts and Shadows were among my favourites so these were definitely terrific additions. Roxane Gay's own narration was excellent.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Amazing and poignant journey If you like short stories and realistic perceptions this is for you
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5this was not my kind of book I didn't enjoy it much but credit must be given where credit is due ♥️