St Pierre: mountain of death
It’s a small town like any other in the Caribbean. A cluster of two-storey shops and houses, dominated by a solid stone church; a...
Back and fort
Castillo San Felipe del Morro San Juan, Puerto Rico; 16th century UNESCO World Heritage Site Dating back to 1539, El Morro is reputed to be...
The shot at the mercy gate
The Haitian Revolution, a titanic thirteen-year struggle that ended slavery in the Caribbean’s most prosperous colony, has rightly been...
Henri Christophe’s palace of dreams in Sans Souci
The small community of Milot is pretty much what any visitor to northern Haiti might expect to find: a few streets of wood and corrugated...
Spice of life
Few things rouse stronger patriotic feelings than national cuisines. Every Caribbean territory boasts about its own celebrated dishes, none...
Emeline Michel: Queen of songs
I must begin this column with a somewhat sheepish admission: I don’t know a great deal about the music of the French Caribbean. That’s...
The Jacmel Ciné Institute: changing the story
There are countries that tell their own stories, and countries whose stories have been told for them. Haiti has long been one of the...
Toussaint Louverture: great black hope
Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, by Madison Smartt Bell (Pantheon, ISBN 978-0-375-42337-6, 338 pp) He wasn’t a handsome man. None of...
