Marie Vieux-Chauvet

Marie Vieux-Chauvet (born Marie Vieux; September 16, 1916 – June 19, 1973), was a novelist, poet and playwright who was born and educated in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Quotes

Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Trilogy (1968)

translated from the French by Val Vinokur and Rose-Myriam Réjouis (2009)

• Quietly, like a shadow, I watch this drama unfold scene by scene. I am the lucid one here, the dangerous one, and nobody suspects. An old maid! No husband. Doesn't know love. Hasn't even lived, really. They're wrong. In any case, I'm savoring my revenge in silence. Silence is mine, vengeance is mine. (first lines of "Love" )

• Freedom is an inmost power. That is why society limits it.

• One thing remains true: hatred only breeds hatred.

• What’s the use of religion if it oppresses instead of consoling? If it offers despair instead of relief? If it takes away instead of preserving?

• Fear is a vice that takes root once it is cultivated.

• It is with my hand and with my heart that I write, not with my eyes

Quotes about Marie Vieux-Chauvet

• Marie Vieux-Chauvet is for me one of Haiti’s iconic female writers. She wrote primarily during the Duvalier dictatorship and her personal story is a powerful story of the choices writers during that time were forced to make...One of the wonderful things about her work is that she also writes so exquisitely, so beautifully.
  • Edwidge Danticat Interview (2010)