Beyond Truth and Reconciliation in La Mémoire aux abois and Un alligator nommé Rosa
The familiar adage that truth is stranger than fiction came to life in January of 2011 when former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier landed in Port-au-Prince after nearly twenty-five years in exile. The teledjol kicked into intense overdrive as people speculated about the nature of this controversial return to the native land. Why did Duvalier return? Would he face justice for human rights abuses committed during the regime, which spanned two generations? A press statement announced that the purpose of this audacious homecoming was an innocuous act of solidarity: his desire to celebrate the anniversary of the earthquake in the company of his countrymen and women. That this was the same homeland in which the Duvaliers were responsible for 50,000 killings of those same countrymen and women during the period known as la terreur (1957-1986) was not a point lost on survivors of the regime, family members of victims, writers, journalists, and scholars. More than two decades after the end of la terreur Baby Doc's reversal and refusal of his exile sought to revise the heritage of this painful past.1 It also exacerbated an environment fraught with tensions that ranged from political to epidemiological-an unfolding contested election, the imminent one-year anniversary of the quake, and the raging cholera epidemic.
