A Sun To Be Sewn: A Novel

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

An NPR Book of the Day In this modern fable full of poetry, desire, and blood, a creative young Haitian girl struggles against seemingly impossible odds to escape the cruel reality of her Port-au-Prince slum. "You'll be alone in the great night." That's what Papa has always prophesied to her. Papa, who isn't her real father-he disappeared when she was born. Since then, her mother has been forced to walk the streets to provide for herself and her daughter, while Papa robs and murders for the local gang leader, to ensure his access to ganja and alcohol, but also for the sheer pleasure of it. Often finding herself alone within the four walls of a hovel in a Haitian shantytown with corrugated iron for a roof, the young girl tirelessly tries to compose a letter that will capture what is in her heart and soul. She is consumed with love for a classmate, the daughter of her teacher, and searches for words to faithfully express her feelings and her dreams. In a poetic language that encompasses poverty and idealism, she observes the violence, the shortcomings, and the addictions of the adults around her. Her passion makes her resilient, nurturing her character and helping her to invent a better fate than the one to which she seemed doomed.

Reviews

An NPR Book of the Day

A slim, brutal novelbeautifully poetic. NPR, All Things Considered

DAmrique unfolds a panorama of pain and courage, death and desire, telling all in a wounded lyrical style that haunts the reader long after the novels endKehou does a mesmerizing job at recasting this beautiful, heartbreaking tale into English. Asymptote

Being Haitian means to be born in blood, Jean DAmrique has written. A Sun to Be Sewn, like DAmriques other novels, poetry, and theatrical works, immerses us in that blood, but he refuses to let his characters be silenced. His words haunt us with the subtlety, nuance, and lyricism that our beautiful and aching country not only inspires, but demands. Jean DAmrique is a very talented writer and A Sun to Be Sewn is an unforgettable novel. Edwidge Danticat, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory

Jean DAmriques prose has a musical rhythm, making each sentence of A Sun to Be Sewn come alive. He paints a portrait of a childs world with the delicate touch of a poet. A necessary and stunning rendering of contemporary Haiti, childhood, and what it means to survive, A Sun to Be Sewn is told through a remarkable voice unlike any other, imparting the reader with images that will not soon be forgotten. Leila Mottley, New York Times bestselling author of Nightcrawling

As timely a work as it is timeless, Jean DAmriques A Sun to Be Sewn, translated with an expert touch by Thierry Kehou, plunges the reader into the tumultuous world of its young female Haitian protagonist through language so lyrical and abrim with imagery each sentence impresses itself on the mind. Amidst the tragic, DAmrique offers a tale of survival, and reminds us of literatures incomparable representational power.John Keene, National Book Awardwinning author of Punks: New & Selected Poems

A Shakespearean debut novel, with the tragic beauty of a Gricault painting. Stunning.Le Monde des livres

The genius of Jean DAmrique is having successfully used a language at once marvelously poetic and very hard. I couldnt pull myself away, I read it in one sitting.Climne Daudet, France Culture, Affaires culturelles

Tenderness and violence alternate in this book that describes the gangsterization of neighborhoods in the Haitian capital.Le Point

Author Bio

Jean D'Amerique, born in Haiti in 1994, is a poet, playwright, and novelist. He received the Prix de Poesie de la Vocation for his poetry collection Nul chemin dans la peau que saignante etreinte and the Prix Jean-Jacques Lerrant des Journees de Lyon des Auteurs de The tre for his play Cathedrale des cochons. His first novel, Soleil coudre, was published in 2021. Thierry Kehou is a writer and literary translator based in Brooklyn, New York. His translation of Francis Bebey's novella Three Little Shoeshiners received support from the Bread Loaf Translators' Conference and was long-listed for the 2020 John Dryden Translation Competition. Kehou holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Newark and a BA in Individualized Study from New York University's Gallatin School. He is a founding member and board member of Lampblack.