Memoir of an Amnesiac

Memoir of an Amnesiac is a work of several dimensions; memoir, novel, roman clef. In one facet it is as especially privileged and personal view of the Haitian journalist Jean Dominique, redoutable until his assassination in the year 2000. In another, it is a sophisticated study of the paradoxal relationship between memory and fabrication. In a third, it is a veiled but vivid account of life under a regime which suppresses not only action and speech but also thought. This fluent translation by Irline Franois has made a somewhat challenging French text not only accessible but even seductive to American readers. --Madison Smartt Bell--