These words come back to remind me that I am a slave, and it is in this truth that my strength lies. Whether a field slave or a house slave, man, wom… - Évelyne Trouillot

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These words come back to remind me that I am a slave, and it is in this truth that my strength lies. Whether a field slave or a house slave, man, woman, or child, the slave is a creature who has lost his soul between the mill and the sugarcane, between the ship's hold and its steerage, between the crinoline and the slap in the face. Shame stains our every gesture. When we place our feet, undeserving of shoes, on the ground, when we let our exhausted bodies fall on cornhusk mattresses, and when we swing the bamboo fans, we crush our souls under the weight of our shame. Only our gestures of revolt truly belong to us. (p62)

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About Évelyne Trouillot

Évelyne Trouillot (born January 2, 1954) is an author and professor who lives in Haiti. She writes in French and Creole.

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Alternative Names: Evelyne Trouillot Ménard
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I think that we often tend not to face the pages of our history that upset us. I would have thought that there would be many more texts, many more stories around the Duvalier dictatorship. Generations of men and women were marked by this period. But it’s the same story as for slavery: there is shame in speaking of it, like a wound that one is scared to touch.

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