Marie Vieux-Chauvet Explained

Marie Vieux-Chauvet
Pseudonym:Colibri
Birth Name:Marie Vieux
Birth Date:16 September 1916
Birth Place:Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Death Date: (aged 56)
Death Place:New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation:Writer
Nationality:Haitian
Period:1947–1973
Genre:Novels, plays, short stories
Spouses:Aymon Charlier, Pierre Chauvet, Ted Proudfoot
Relatives:Constant Vieux (Father), Delia Nones (Mother)

Marie Vieux-Chauvet (born Marie Vieux; September 16, 1916 – June 19, 1973),[1] was a Haitian novelist, poet and playwright. Born and educated in Port-au-Prince, she is most famous for the novels Fille d'Haïti (1954), La Danse sur le volcan (1957), Fonds des nègres (1960), and Amour, colère et folie (1968).[2] During her lifetime, she published under the name Marie Chauvet.[3]

Family history

Marie Vieux-Chauvet was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on September 16, 1916, to Constant Vieux, a Haitian politician, and his wife Delia Nones, a woman originally from the Virgin Islands.[4] Marie completed her studies at the l'Annexe de l'École Normale d'Institutrices and obtained a degree in elementary education in 1933. She married Aymon Charlier, a doctor, then divorced him. She later married Pierre Chauvet, a travel agent.

Work

Vieux-Chauvet's works focus on class, color, race, gender, family structure and the upheaval of Haitian political, economic and social society during the United States occupation of Haiti[5] and the dictatorship of François Duvalier (Papa Doc). Although she lived under heavy surveillance during Duvalier's dictatorship, Vieux-Chauvet persisted as a writer, hosting meetings of the Les Araignées du Soir (Evening Spiders), a group of poets and writers of which she was the only female.

Vieux-Chauvet sent a trilogy of novellas to France to be published as a single book titled Amour, colère et folie (Love, Anger, Madness).[6] Amour, colère et folie was published in 1968 by the prestigious publishing house Gallimard in Paris with the support of Simone de Beauvoir. The book was perceived as an attack on the Haitian dictator François Duvalier. Fearing the dictator's legions of a spooky and dreaded Haiti's secret police, the Tonton Macoutes (Les Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale), she moved to New York City. Her husband, Pierre Chauvet, travelled to Haiti and bought all the copies of the book he could find. Vieux-Chauvet's daughters bought the remaining copies from Gallimard a few years later. She later remarried and worked as a housekeeper in Queens.

She died of brain cancer in the United States on June 19, 1973.

Extracts from her work appear in the anthologies Her True-True Name[7] and Daughters of Africa.[8] An English translation of Amour, colère et folie (Love, Anger, Madness) by Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokur was published in 2009 with an introduction by Haitian-American writer Edwige Danticat.

Literary awards

Bibliography

Novels

Plays

Short story

Further reading

See also

External Links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Marie Vieux-Chauvet. WorldCat. June 10, 2023 . live . June 10, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230610111002/https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PBJm4PX7JBFXhmpP7vGdJDq.html.
  2. Web site: Smarth Bell. Madison. Permanent Exile: On Marie Vieux-Chauvet. January 14, 2010. The Nation. March 14, 2015. dead. February 21, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130221105530/http://www.thenation.com/article/permanent-exile-marie-vieux-chauvet.
  3. SPEAR. THOMAS C.. 2015. Marie Chauvet: The Fortress Still Stands. Yale French Studies. 128. 9–24. 24643708 . 0044-0078.
  4. Web site: Vitiello. Joelle. Marie Chauvet. Île en Île. May 11, 1999 . March 14, 2015 . fr.
  5. Web site: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.
  6. Web site: Between Squalor and Splendor: Haitian Literature and National Crisis. August 9, 2010. October 26, 2015. Sampsonia Way. City of Asylum/Pittsburgh. Hoover. Elizabeth . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110122084626/http://www.sampsoniaway.org/bi-monthly/2010/08/09/between-squalor-and-splendor-haitian-literature-and-national-crisis/ . January 22, 2011.
  7. [Pamela Mordecai]
  8. [Margaret Busby]
  9. Web site: Love, Anger, Madness by Marie Vieux-Chauvet: 9780812976922 PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books. 2021-01-27. PenguinRandomhouse.com. en-US.

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