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An
enthralling memoir of Kathie Klarreich's life in
Haiti as a reporter for NPR, the Christian Science Monitor, NBC News, and Time during the past decade |
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PRAISE FOR MADAME DREAD |
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A vivid and often
poignant memoir of close
engagement with a
distant world, Madame
Dread also offers us a
privileged view of
Haiti's struggle for
justice and freedom over
the last two decades.
-Madison Smartt Bell, author
"Kathie Klarreich takes
us on an incredible voyage not only through
Haitian society, culture, religion and politics,
but also into the depths of the country's heart
and soul. However the most poignant and moving
journey of all is through her own magnificent
heart, which through its ability to survive,
rebound and thrive, leaves its imprints on every
page of this book and indeed every corner of the
reader's soul."
"Madame Dread:
A Tale of Love, Vodou, and Civil Strife
in Haiti" by Kathie Klarreich (Nation
Books)
is a memoir filled with humor, personality and cultural richness. Klarreich, an American journalist with a keen eye for foibles across national lines, married a Haitian musician during a time of trouble in Haiti and had his baby during a coup d'état. When else to have a proper, patriotic Haitian child? She chronicles with deep affection and understanding the troubles in Haiti before, during and after the rise of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and does so in the great humanistic, border-breaking tradition of Isak Dinesen and Graham Greene. Her portrait of the complicated Aristide is precise and dead-on. Despite the "Vodou" in the subtitle, this book transcends the usual foreign tropes about Haiti's evil and exoticism and plunges through to our common humanity. -Amy Wilentz, The Los Angeles Times
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide was a corrupt authoritarian who
inflicted enormous pain "It is with
skill and insight that she delivers a candid analysis of the
country's discord. Through her struggles, Ms. Klarreich
emerges as a stronger woman who will forever be shaped by
her love of Haiti."
Read the Review in the SUN-SENTINEL by J.
Hyppolite
"Madame Dread
covers the period from the end of the
1980s through the end of the 1990s. It
is an exceptional testimony of the
serious political events which marked
this historic period of Haitian history;
"True to her journalistic roots.
Klarreich's writing is clear, factual, and
sans frills...
Read the review in
The
St. Petersburg Times,
"I could not put this
book down! From the very first page Kathie
Klarreich grabbed me and
Read the review in
The
Cleveland Jewish News,
Read
the review in the Virgin Islands Daily News "Madame Dread is
a fascinating journey, before and after all.
The author, Kathie Klarreich, is so brutally
honest throughout that one feels like a
voyeur, especially in the parts where she
recounts some of her romantic experiences
with men not of her ancestry. As the local
music deeply rooted in Vodou, takes her into
trances unknown to her until then, so does
love and all that is determined by it:
thrilling uncertainty.
"Madame
Dread is a fascinating account of
Haiti by one who has lived there,
explored all parts of the culture,
and writes about it with passion and
style. Entertaining as well as
enlightening."
- Dan
Wakefield, author of New York in
the Fifties
PRAISE FOR OTHER WORKS BY KATHIE KLARREICH "I admire this story of
infidelity woven organically into a vivid cultural
context. The writer smartly uses a small lens through
which the larger world appears, and I'm taken with the
grace by which we move from the initial problem, to its
complications, and finally on to its resolution. This is
a carefully observed and nicely detailed world, and the
writer knows how to get in and get out quickly and
gracefully while taking a character to a moment of moral
choice that never seems moralistic. A nicely rendered
story with just the right balance of emotion and
restraint."
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