CHAMBER POT ROAD
by
Félix Morisseau-Leroy was the first Haitian writer to excel in both French and Creole literature. He is known throughout the world as the Father of Creole Writing.
In "Chamber Pot Road,"originally written in Haitian Creole, from the short story collection Ravinodyab (Devil's Canyon), he introduces himself as the naive, illiterate narrator—a narrator whose words have been written down by another. As he says at the beginning of the story: "My best friend was my cousin Lolo. We were the same age, but she went to school and I didn't. . .I would give her a run-down of what happened on the streets while she was wasting time at school."
But behind the simple, artless persona of the "Chamber Pot Road" storyteller stands one of Haiti's most sophisticated and versatile writers. Born in Jacmel, Haiti, Morisseau-Leroy studied at Columbia University in New York City. He was a hard-hitting journalist in Paris, a director in the Public Education Office in Haiti, and for many years an unusually prolific poet and dramatist in Ghana and Senegal. He has published numerous anthologies of poetry, fiction, and essays, and his theatrical works include Antigone en Créole (Creole Antigone), and Roi Kréon (King Creon).
In his Creole writing, Morisseau-Leroy taps into Haiti's powerful oral literature. He is a master of the kont Kreyol, the "Creole story," known generically throughout the French Caribbean as the kont sanblé, story-telling at a gathering. Morisseau-Leroy belongs to a distinguished group of Caribbean storytellers: Néré Cincinnatus, Césaire Surbon, and Elie Pennont from Martinique; Moise Benjamin from Guadeloupe; Lucien Alexander from Guyana; and Dominique Luc—known as Dodo—from Haiti. Their stories are spoken, dramatic tales which they recite and act out to a group of listeners underscoring points with song, music, and dance. Characters descending from African and native Caribbean lore crowd their tales.
The Haitian oral tale shares the same mythical background as the Caribbean kont Kreyol, the Creole story. But an interesting difference is the special Haitian mixture of reality, myth, and magic. Haitian tales, like "Chamber Pot Road," tend to blend actual events—real life—with the supernatural world of the ancient Caribbean and African spirits.
As the plot of "Chamber Pot Road" unfolds, Haitian political events, social unrest, and government crackdowns, mingle with the ancient spirit world of the voodoo religion, creating an original Haitian magic realism.
Copyright © by Peter Constantine