Jean Michel Lapin, the Minister of Culture, congratulates and pays tribute to the Haitian novelist writer Louis-Philippe Dalembert Winner of the Prix de la langue française 2019 https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-29026-icihaiti-literature-louis-philippe-dalembert-winner-of-the-prize-of-the-french-language.html for his novel "Mer Méditerranée" (Mediterranean Sea) (also in the running for the Prix Goncourt 2019) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-28681-haiti-literature-the-haitian-writer-louis-philippe-dalembert-in-the-running-for-the-prix-goncourt-2019.html which knew how to put our two-colored Haitian under the spotlight at a time when the country has more than ever need to offer an image of pride on the international scene.

Summary of "Mur Méditerranée" by haitian writer Louis-Philippe Dalembert :

Inspired by the tragedy of a stowaway ship rescued by the Danish tanker Torm Lotte in the summer of 2014, Louis-Philippe Dalembert, through three magnificent portraits of women, strikingly confronts us with the human condition, in an ample fresco of migration and exile.

"[...] In Sabratha, on the Libyan coast, the supervisors burst into the women's warehouse. Among them are Shochana, a Nigerian, and Semhar, an Eritrean. The two met there after months of wandering on the roads of the continent. Since they left their native land, they have been working to collect the sum that will satisfy the greed of smugglers. Tonight, they finally board for the crossing.

A little earlier, in Tripoli, Syrian families, dressed elegantly, settled in air-conditioned minibuses. It was already four weeks since Dima, her husband, and their two little girls were waiting to leave for Lampedusa. This 16th of July 2014 is the big start.

These women with different trajectories. Dima the bourgeois travels on the bridge, Chochana and Semhar in the hold, have all crossed the point of no return and find themselves aboard the trawler united in the same hope of a new life in Europe.

[...]"

Learn More about Louis Philippe Dalembert :

Louis-Philippe Dalembert was born in Port-au-Prince and lives in Paris. Since 1993, he has published in various publishers in France and Haiti, of novels (to the Serpent à plumes from 1993 : Le Songe d'une photo d'enfance), of poetry, fiction (with Philippe Rey / Culturesfrance in 2010, with Lyonel Trouillot: Haïti, une traversée littéraire) and novels (the latest ones at the Mercure de France: Noires blessures en 2011 and Ballade d'un amour inachevé in 2013). Professor invited at various American universities, he was a resident of the Villa Medici (1994-1995), a writer in residence in Jerusalem and Berlin, and was awarded numerous prizes including the RFO prize in 1999, the Casa de las Américas In 2008 and the Thyde Monnier of the SGDL in 2013.

See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-29026-icihaiti-literature-louis-philippe-dalembert-winner-of-the-prize-of-the-french-language.html

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