After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti (Updated) (Vintage Departures)

Ms Edwidge Danticat continues to provide us with unique opportunities to look inside Haitian culture and "After the Dance" certainly does not disappoint. It is a quick read, though I felt it did not flow as smoothly as some of her other works. Reading about celebration and nostalgia in Haiti is a refreshing break from most of the available literature. It certainly speaks to the amazing resilience and pride that is distinctly Haitian. I certainly would have appreciated photographs/illustrations of some of the events, masks and locales.

An amazing writer!

If you have traveled to Jacmel or interested, a must read.

Carnival is one of the defining events of the Haitian year, and nowhere is it celebrated with more verve than in the seaside town of Jacmel. The Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat never had the opportunity to attend carnival. Thus, as an adult, she returns to Haiti, to Jacmel, to experience what she missed in childhoood. This book is an account of Danticat's trip back. This is a travel essay, but at the same time, it's so much more. After the dance is a travel narrative, a memoir, and a history, of Haiti and of the carnival. A beautifully-written homage to the carnival, the book spins out in multiple directions, telling stories, and full of descriptive imagery. This is quite a short book, and given all of the things the book tries to do, it doesn't do any of them completely. Instead, we get snatches and tidbits of histories and memories, and the book is a pleasure to read. Danticat uses Carnival and its activities as metaphors to discuss larger events and issues in her own and Haiti's past and present. This is a book one should read to get a taste of Haiti. It's not necessarily comprehensive, but it paints a brillaint picture.

Until this short, entertaining book, part memoir and part travelogue, I'd never read much of anything positive about Haiti. Years of political strife and the Duvalier dictatorships have certainly taken its toll on this densely populated third of Hispaniola (the rest is the Dominican Republic), but apparently Haiti is ready for tourists again and there's much to attact us there. Carnival, those jubilant and reckless days before Lent, would be a grand time to go. Like similar celebrations in Rio, Venice, and New Orleans, this a festival of the bizarre and the ridiculously sublime. Danticat is a fine writer and portrays her native country and countrymen with clarity and passion. This is part of Crown Journeys, a very promising new series of travel essays, written by some of our finest contemporary authors. Educating and entertaining; makes you want to book passage on the next flight or ship.

"After the Dance" by Edwidge Danticat, is a celebration of the beauty, history and power of African culture in the diaspora of Haiti. Edwidge Danticat's writings stand on the shoulders of great writers such as Zora Neal Hurston, Langston Hughes and Walter Mosley. "After the Dance" champions the day to day experiences, joys, and challenges of people of African ancestry as they celebrate Carnival in Haiti. By accurately telling their story in "After the Danice", Edwidge Danticat paints a multi-sided portait of a community in transition, and as with any great writer, the truth she speaks about one community , informs our understanding of all communities. "After the Dance" is an excellent work by an excellent writer...

It's always refreshing to read about the Caribbean, especially when it involves carnival and when the recount is being done by such a great writer. I must say that at times I felt like screaming that this woman really does not know how to let loose and really enjoy carnival. Just imagine if she were in Trinidad instead playing j'ouvert, and doing carnival for 2 days straight!! Nevertheless, I liked the fact that she paid careful attention to detail and incorporated much historical content into the novel.