Moonbath

(Paperback)

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Winner of the 2014 Prix Fmina & 2015 French Voices Award

After she is found washed up on shore, Ctoute Olmne Thrse, bloody and bruised, recalls the circumstances that led her there. Her voice weaves hauntingly in and out of the narrative, as her story intertwines with those of three generations of women in her family, beginning with Olmne, her grandmother.

Olmne, barely sixteen, catches the eye of the cruel and powerful Tertulien Msidor, despite the generations-long feud between their families which cast her ancestors into poverty. He promises her shoes, dresses, land, and children who will want for nothingand five months after moving into her new home, she gives birth to a son. As the family struggles through political and economic turmoil, the narrative shifts between the voices of four women, their lives interwoven with magic and fraught equally with hope and despair, leading to Ctoute's ultimate, tragic fate.

Yanick Lahens was born in Port-au-Prince in 1953 and is one of Haitis most prominent authors. She published her first novel in 2000, was awarded the prestigious Prix Femina in 2014 for Moonbath, and is the 2016 winner of a French Voices Award.

Reviews

Winner of the Prix Femina, 2014 Winner of a French Voices Award, 2015 [Lahens] describes her country with a forceful beauty the destruction that befell it, political opportunism, families torn apart, andthespellbinding words of Haitian farmers who solelyrely on subterranean powers. Donyapress In the Haitian tradition of the rural novel [] Yanick Lahens Moonbath establishes itself by its grand and lucid beauty. Le Point Lahenss ambitious fresco of twentieth-century Haiti through the eyes of peasants depicts the first generation with Romain-like incision. Robert H. McCormick Jr, World Literature Today "Lahens is the most important living female Haitian author in French." Christiane Makward A novel of violent beauty. Le Monde "One of the finest voices of Haitian contemporary literature." LObs "Everything is there, the content, powerful, and the style, poetic." Les Echos A remarkable accomplishment. Asymptote Yanick Lahens adeptly dipped her pen nib in tears to write Moonbath. She brandished her writing instrument with dexterity, creating Ctoute as a metaphor symbolizing both the pain and the promise of Haiti. Lanie Tankard, The Woven Tale Press The novels mythic atmosphere is enhanced by Lahens meditations on personified nature, and Emily Gogolaks translation preserves a bare and moving voice throughout. The Arkansas International Power and corruption are ever present, and their pressuresbe they sexual or economic or bothare often impossible to reckon with or escape. Though whats most surprising is the sense that one has waded fully into the world these characters inhabit, a world so alive that I sometimes forgot I was reading a book at all. Im reminded of first reading Gabriel Garca Mrquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book that similarly transported me clean out of my self and into some other world beyond. Christian Kiefer, The Paris Review An invigorating and necessary investigation of tradition, politics, loss, and history. Zeena Yasmine Fuleihan, Ploughshares On every reread of this multigenerational Haitian novel I find more complexity and beauty in its pages. Cecilia Weddell, Associate Editor of Harvard Review Online
Winner of the Prix Femina, 2014 Winner of a French Voices Award, 2015 A remarkable accomplishment. Asymptote Yanick Lahens adeptly dipped her pen nib in tears to write Moonbath.She brandished her writing instrument with dexterity, creating Ctoute as a metaphor symbolizing both the pain and the promise of Haiti. Lanie Tankard,The Woven Tale Press In the Haitian tradition of the rural novel [] Yanick Lahens Moonbath establishes itself by its grand and lucid beauty. Le Point Lahenss ambitious fresco of twentieth-century Haiti through the eyes of peasants depicts the first generation with Romain-like incision. Robert H. McCormick Jr, World Literature Today "Lahens is the most important living female Haitian author in French." Christiane Makward A novel of violent beauty. Le Monde [Lahens] describes her country with a forceful beauty the destruction that befell it, political opportunism, families torn apart, andthespellbinding words of Haitian farmers who solelyrely on subterranean powers. Donyapress "One of the finest voices of Haitian contemporary literature." LObs "Everything is there, the content, powerful, and the style, poetic." Les Echos "The novels mythic atmosphere is enhanced by Lahens meditations on personified nature, and Emily Gogolaks translation preserves a bare and moving voice throughout. The Arkansas International Power and corruption are ever present, and their pressuresbe they sexual or economic or bothare often impossible to reckon with or escape. Though whats most surprising is the sense that one has waded fully into the world these characters inhabit, a world so alive that I sometimes forgot I was reading a book at all. Im reminded of first reading Gabriel Garca Mrquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book that similarly transported me clean out of my self and into some other world beyond. - Christian Kiefer, The Paris Review An invigorating and necessary investigation of tradition, politics, loss, and history. - Zeena Yasmine Fuleihan, Ploughshares "on every reread of this multigenerational Haitian novel I find more complexity and beauty in its pages. Cecilia Weddell, Associate Editor of Harvard Review Online

Author Bio

Yanick Lahens was born in Port-au-Prince in 1953. After attending school and university in France, she returned to Haiti., where she taught literature at the university in Port-au-Prince and worked for the Ministry of Culture. Her first novel was published in 2000, and she won the prestigious Prix Femina for Moonbath in 2014. Emily Gogolak is a journalist focusing on migration, gender, and the US-Mexico border. A former editorial staffer at The New Yorker and a James Reston Reporting Fellow at the New York Times, she now lives in Texas. A graduate of Brown University in Comparative Literature, she is also a literary translator. Her translation of Moonbath won a 2015 French Voices Award.