Published in 2025
224 pages
Emmelie Prophète (b. 1971, Port-au-Prince, Haiti) is the author of two poetry collections and six novels, the first of which, Les Testaments de Solitude, won the Grand Prix littéraire de l’Association des écrivains de langue française. Prophète’s most recent novel, Les Villages de Dieu, was awarded the Prix FetKann Maryse Condé, a prize that recognizes literature promoting human dignity from the largely postcolonial global South. Prophète is the former director of the National Library of Haiti, and is now a cultural curator in Port-au-Prince.
What is this book about?
“The best book on Haiti in a very long time . . . powerful, spot on, likely the best written.” —Dany Laferrière
An astonishing novel of raw beauty about gang life, sex work, and social media in Haiti
Cécé La Flamme, as she’s known by her loyal Facebook friends, captures photographs of still bodies. Figures scorched and bruised, left to the rubble of the Cité of Divine Power. When she posts an image of a corpse, Cécé’s followers skyrocket. “Nothing got more attention than a good corpse that was nice and warm or already rotting.” Just beside visions of rot and neglect, she posts pictures of her toes, gullies crisscrossing the cité, and her own lips painted blue. With every image, Cécé seeks control and wants to create a frank, intimate record of the terror in her cité.
Cécé’s world begins and ends with the cité – a slum peopled by gangs, yelping kids, grandmothers, junkies, and preachers. The very gate that encloses the cité was constructed by militant gang members. First boss Freddy, then Joël, then Jules César rule the gang that holds the cité in a chokehold. Sharp, sincere, and desperate, Cécé cleaves life for herself out of social media, sex work, and attempts at friendship with other women. When an American journalist offers to buy the rights to Cécé’s photographs, she demands double the cash. When an abusive former client dies, she wears hot pink to his funeral. Emmelie Prophète’s novel is fierce, devastating, and suggestive – a record of a woman clawing back control.
