I wonder if someday I'll be able to free myself from the forlorn and agonizing shell in which you raised me. When I look at the figure stretched out … - Évelyne Trouillot

Today, old and bedbound, she finds herself alone. She knows we are always alone at the end of life, even when relatives are holding our hand, even when those who love us are shedding genuine tears. We must confront death all alone. There's no longer any way to hide behind plans, intentions, or dreams. It's necessary to look at the life behind us and say good-bye to it. We can pretend otherwise, but what good would it do? Along the way, illusions and self-deception help us to continue, but at the end of the road, they become useless masks that we must discard, for whether we like it or not, the flesh is laid bare and revealed for what it is. (chapter 1 p31)

While writing Rosalie l’infâme, I rediscovered the history of the revolution, I learned about the struggles of the enslaved women, men and children in their daily lives; their struggles to maintain their dignity. And I truly believe that if the slaves had not fought for their dignity, if they had not managed to maintain some dignity amid the most inhuman system, the Haitian revolution would not have been possible. While doing my research for writing Rosalie, I could empathize with them because finally I saw them as human beings and not as an anonymous mass of victims of slavery.

This image of the condemned books remains for me one of the strongest images of the repression, this repression of knowledge and of creative freedom. Isn’t that one of the strongest armies used by dictators everywhere?