This gritty translated novel locates the power of resistance in women,
and in the pen.
In A KNIFE IN THE SKY, a journalist's decision to talk and a student's
desire to know puts them in the crosshairs of a murderous dictatorship.
As the novel opens, Mika is dangerously engaged in the pursuit of truth
during Haiti's first Duvalier regime. Nearly thirty years later, her
granddaughter Junon witnesses the repressive dynasty's unravelling.
Brutal, terrifying, and hopeful, A KNIFE IN THE SKY is an homage to
those who have survived tyranny. Originally published by Éditions du
Remue-mènage in 2015 as Femmes au temps des carnassiers, this book, like
most of the author's oeuvre, is preoccupied with colonial imposition.
Marie-Célie Agnant writes on the ruthlessness of a dictatorship, on
humanity, and locates the strength and power of resistance in women.
The work is shaped through a rich, crafted language that creates an
acute awareness of what duvalierism was. This considerable effort is not
a catharsis, nor an anamnesis; rather, it is the heart-rending testimony
of the suffering, the inner struggles and the stand against Duvalierism
of a woman caught in the midst of a regime that redefined the heights of
horror.--Alain Saint-Victor, Potomitan
Marie-Célie Agnant's work is noble: she names and narrates terrible
emotions and chaos, yet always in a sensitive and poetic way. The fate
of the women in her books is not sealed by the torment of their daily
lives, but in the humanity of each one. Through these portraits of
women--courageous women, women who are full of hope, even without
underestimating the weight on their shoulders--Agnant shows us the pain
they carry from one generation to the next.--Le Fil Rouge
Fiction.
