Wednesday, the writer, political activist committed against the Duvalier regime and doctor neurologist, Jacques Stephen Alexis (born in Gonaïves April 22, 1922), died during his clandestine return to Haiti in April 1961 on the northwest coast of Haiti, near the Mole Saint-Nicolas where he was tortured executed and buried on the spot with his companions Charles Adrien George, Guy Béliard, Hubert Dupuis-Nouillé and Max Monroe, became the first posthumous laureate of the new Prix Jean d'Ormesson (created last March) for his masterful novel "L'espace d'un cillement" at the Gallimard Edition / L'imaginaire).

"L'espace d'un cillement", published in 1959, is a masterpiece of a "marvelous realism", a literary genre initiated by Cuban Alejo Carpentier. This novel of love is carried by an incandescent writing. Book written in the present tense, each chapter is cut to the rhythm of the five senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch).

This book, sensual and poetic, is an ode to Haiti: its smells, its music, its rage to live. A close writer of Louis Aragon and Aimé Césaire, Jacques Stephen Alexis has inspired a generation of writers including Haitian-born Canadian Dany Laferrière, a colleague of Jean d'Ormesson at the Académie française and a member of the jury.

Last year, the publisher Zulma accidentally found the continuation, unfortunately unfinished, of "L'espace d'un cillement" which was published under the title "L'étoile Absinthe".

IH/ iciHaiti