Cruel Destiny and The White Negress

"Cléante Desgraves Valcin’s Cruel Destiny and The White Negress are two extraordinary works of twentieth century Haitian feminist literature that merit our attention today. Thanks to Jégousso and Nemmers’s elegant and clear-eyed rendering of Valcin’s sentimental prose, present-day readers have a truly precious opportunity to consider both race and gender in ways that transgress the stubborn borders of the Atlantic world." ~Kaiama L. Glover, author of A Regarded Self: Caribbean Womanhood and the Ethics of Disorderly Being

"A founding member of Haiti’s first formal feminist organization, La Ligue Féminine d’Action Sociale, Cléante Desgraves Valcin was the first Haitian woman to publish a novel, Cruelle Destinée in 1929. This first complete translation into English of both of her captivating novels will contribute to ensuring her recognition as a pivotal figure of Haitian feminism and literature." ~Nadève Ménard, co-editor of The Haiti Reader: History, Culture, Politics

"These first published novels by a Haitian woman are groundbreaking, both as acts of cultural resistance to colonialism and occupation and as vehicles to explore the island’s paradoxes of colorism, class, race and gender. Although cloaked in an aura of sentimentality, their social portraits demonstrate clearly the central role of women in the construction of Haitian national identity." ~H. Adlai Murdoch, editor of The Struggle of Non-Sovereign Caribbean Territories: Neoliberalism Since the French Antillean Uprisings of 2009 (Rutgers University Press)