Dining With the Dictator [Paperback]

Dany Laferriere (Author), David Homel (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1994

a novel, Haiti/Canada, tr David Homel

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Recalling his youth in Papa Doc's tumultuous Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from the "sanctuary" of his Miami bathtub, the narrator of this tale creates a story of a displaced heart striving for balance in an upside-down world. At 16, he camped out in a house full of foxy "girls" while hiding from Duvalier's dreaded secret police. "I try to make myself scarce in the corner. The one who sees is not seen. My fondest dream: not to be seen," the young writer confesses, while around him whirls a parade of nudity and sexual repartee. "Could we be in the dying days of...the battle of the sexes," he muses, refusing even the girls' most steamy advances. Instead he goes out with the crazy Gege, who keeps in his pocket a blood-spurting replica of castrated testicles. Across the street, the narrator's mother and world-wise aunts worry what happened to him in a city of "zombies and sharks," where "all the real men are in the cemetery." Indeed what happens to males in a country whose violence relegates the business of living to females, females who are also divided between old world and new, religion and sex, reading and bopping, "women" and "girls"? For all its wisdom, lyricism and readability, the author of the acclaimed How to Make Love to a Negro looks only at the surface of this question. While Laferriere's clever poetry gives his book the illusion of poignance and depth, the too passive, too naive narrator tells a less moving, less significant story.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

An adolescent boy wanders out of his mother's protective world and gets caught up in the sordid nightlife of Port-au-Prince. Believing that his friend has mutilated a member of the secret police and that he will be implicated, he takes refuge in the house of a prostitute named Miki, who just happens to live directly across the street from his mother. Here he spends the next three days, watching Miki and her coterie of teenaged prostitutes fighting among themselves over money, clothes, and men. This novel, by Hatian exile Laferriere, a journalist under Duvalier, has nothing to offer by way of imaginative prose or interesting characters. It has no cultural significance and may unwittingly bolster some unfortunate stereotypes. Not recommended.
Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Coach House Books; First edition. edition (January 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0889104808
• ISBN-13: 978-0889104808
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,650,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Put on your critical thinking hat!, March 29, 2002

By 

Jessica Thill (MPLS, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dining With the Dictator (Paperback)

At first glance, this book seems like a simple rite-of-passage tale: young boy goes across the street to commune with gorgeous women and learn about sex and nail polish, or some such thing.

If you look deeper, however, it becomes clear that the journey depicted by LaFerriere is one of political discovery as well. "Papa", a seemingly minor chartacter, lurks in the background, somewhat menacing and completely disinterested in the drama surrounding him. While women kick, scream, yell, and turn on each other viciously, "Papa" (representing Haitian Dictator Duvalier) hardly looks up, hardly notices, does nothing when asked to intervene.

Read this way, the book offers insight into the burgeoning political mind of a young man in a terribly beautiful, terribly corrupt place.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title, January 20, 2000

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dining With the Dictator (Paperback)

Allright, the catchy title (referring to Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti) and cool cover enticed me into buying this slim, unsatisfying book. Apparently functioning as a sequel to the highly autobiographical "An Aroma of Coffee," it nominally follows one teenage boy's weekend in early 1970s Port-au-Prince. In actuality, the boy mostly functions as an observer of the whirlwind lives of a group of fine young women who live across the street from him. This is reflected by the more apt ordinal French title, which translates to "The Taste/Appetite of Young Girls." Theses women are a fairly unpleasant, nasty, catty, backstabbing lot, and are fairly hard to tell apart. Written as a series of scenes, the book conveys some atmosphere of the time, but not enough to make it worthwhile.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read!, February 20, 1998

By 

([e-mail]) (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dining With the Dictator (Paperback)

The story goes limp a few times, but I am still there! I love that Dining With the Dictator, was written almost like a screenplay. And the different personalities of the girls clashes together so well that one can't help but to wonder what is going to happen next!