Masters of the Dew
by Jacques Roumain
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jacques RoumainTranslator: Langston Hughes
Translator: Mercer Cook
Introduction: J. Michael Dash
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1978-01-01
ISBN: 0435987453
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Heinemann
Book Reviews of Masters of the Dew
Book Review: THE CLASSIC AND EXCELLENT TRANSLATION OF Gouverneurs de la rosée ABOUT EMERGING CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS IN HAITI
Summary: 5 Stars
From once a translation almost equals the original.
It helps this translation of Jacques Roumain's historic novel Gouverneurs de la rosée: roman (Collection Les Grands récits antillais) was done by that great and gentle and powerful African American poet Langston Hughes (please see as well his own moving The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes) with the assistance of the great Mercer Cook, famous for among other works The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States. Together they bring a dynamic synthesis of literary beauty and socio-historical consciousness which brings alive to us the English reader this very personal tale of growing social action in colonialist Haiti, subsequent to the American occupation of nearly one hundred years ago ending only with our Great Depression. Such historical content would appear very dry, and yet the great novelist Jacques Roumain, himself Haitian, brings it engagingly and urgently and personally to life, all the more so in terms of his own personal history.
This edition of the beautiful and effective English version, published by Heineman as part of its Caribbean Writers Series in 1978, bears what was then twenty years ago a new and comprehensive introduction by J. Michael Dash, of the French Department of the University of the West Indies at Mona. We gratefully read Dr. Dash's extensive recounting of the history as well as his commentary and placing the full import of this personal tale into its world-wide context.
I would very much like to see a post-Duvalier, post-Aristide update of this introduction. I would most gloriously appreciate a reprinting with large type, as this extensive introduction and lengthy novel here is published with a rather reduced type in order to fit into the paperback format, and old folk like myself soon grow weary of the strain, as much as I love this story and its excellent introduction and its uniquely wonderful and accurate and faithful translation.
AS we grow by the millions into deepest poverty within our own land and world, we have much to learn from this novel. As water rights becomes the next petroleum wars, we have our own survival to gain from a careful study of this text, its increase in conscientiazation and social organization and effective action, much as Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI compels us in his recent Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis: el Sacramento de la Caridad: una Exhortacion Apostolica Postsinodal to change those unjust economic structures which leave a few filthy rich and millions within the deepest poverty, a sin against God and humanity which cries out to Heaven.
In this book and its echoes of US military occupation in Haiti, the francophone section of the island of Hispanola shared with the Dominican Republic and site of endless sugar cane plantations, we hear the drum beats of our present and endless imperialist, militarist, and colonialist occupations.
Summary of Masters of the Dew
The genre of the peasant novel in Haiti reaches back to the nineteenth century and this is one of the outstanding examples. Manuel returns to his native village after working on a sugar plantation in Cuba only to discover that it is stricken by a drought and divided by a family feud. He attacks the resignation endemic among his people by preaching the kind of political awareness and solidarity he has learned in Cuba. He goes on to illustrate his ideas in a tangible way by finding water and bringing it to the fields through the collective labor of the villagers. In this political fable, Roumain is careful to create an authentic environment and credible characters. Readers will be emotionally moved as well as ideologically persuaded.
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