Kathie Klarreich arrived in Haiti as a naïve
thirty-something in the late 1980s to buy crafts
for a fair trade organization. Weeks became
months, and months became years, as Klarreich,
despite the spiraling political violence, became
enthralled by the island’s lifestyle and
traditions. She fell in love with a passionate
and temperamental Haitian musician, witnessed
the unraveling of Haitian political regimes, and
began attending Vodou ceremonies, all a far cry
from her comfortable Jewish upbringing in the
Midwest. Having witnessed a coup just weeks
after her arrival, she began filing reports for
American newspapers and radio, first as an
accidental witness to history, and eventually as
a seasoned journalist dedicated to telling the
story of the country she came to love.
Klarreich experienced civil violence, mass
slaughter, coups, and U.S. intervention up close
as a reporter. Often risking life and limb,
once being mistaken for a CIA agent, and
tragically losing the man she loved to an
assassin’s bullet, she tenaciously soldiered on,
establishing credentials and contacts and
developing an unsparing eye that led major news
organizations such as The New York Times, NBC,
CNN, PBS, Time, and NPR to count on her
expertise throughout Haiti’s most turbulent
years.
This compelling memoir interweaves shattering
political events with an intensely personal
narrative about her relationship with her
Haitian husband, and father to her child; a
story as riveting and complicated as the
political events she covered.
Kathie Klarreich now lives in Florida. She has
reported on Haiti for The Christian Science
Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, “All
Things Considered,” U.S. News & World Report,
and the New York Times, as well as NBC, CNN and
ABC.
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