. . . . . . Et les chiens se taisaient

Abstract

. . . . . . And the Dogs Were Silent makes available, for the first time in English, Aimé Césaire’s original version of Et les chiens se taisaient, a historical drama based on the Haitian Revolution and Toussaint Louverture, composed during World War II, under the watchful eyes of Vichy censors in Martinique. The story unfolds in three acts, each exploring a different episode of the Haitian Revolution, from the early slave revolts in the North of the island to Toussaint’s imprisonment and Dessalines’s march to victory. A stunning meditation on Black revolution and liberatory violence, rife with Césaire’s entrancing poetry and theatrical verve, its action carries us through the forces of history and a hero’s unwavering journey of political and poetic freedom.