Natalia Bolívar Aróstegui; Rolando Estévez (illus.)
Haiti, Fuego Sagrado, 2010
Matanzas, Cuba: Ediciones Vigía
One of 200 copies.
1414
Octavo. 90pp. Illustrations throughout of maps of Haiti and, chiefly, of recreations of the symbology of Haitian voodoo. Here the histories of Cuba and Haiti prove deeply enmeshed; Caribbean voodoo...
Octavo. 90pp. Illustrations throughout of maps of Haiti and, chiefly, of recreations of the symbology of Haitian voodoo. Here the histories of Cuba and Haiti prove deeply enmeshed; Caribbean voodoo practices draw directly from African religions, brought across the ocean due to the transatlantic slave trade. The result is a communal feeling, fostered especially among the Afro-Caribbean descendants of those slaves as a preservation, assertion, and celebration of identity. It is, in many ways, a form of resistance to colonialism. An innovative binding design reinforces the point. The upper cover has an overlay of stiff paper coated with sand and cut in half, so that its fissured sides separate and rejoin - a clever representation of the fracture and repair of a community in the diaspora. Wrapped in a red ribbon with bauble tied at end. Fine.