Overview

Unbroken Nostalgia: Haitian Kreyòl Poetry in Cuba is the first English translation and scholarly edition of the collection Nostalji san pwen ni vigil: pwezi kreyòl nan peyi Kiba (2016) by Hilario Batista Félix. A poet, journalist, and language activist, Batista (1955– ) embodies and expresses Cuba’s cultural and linguistic diversity as a descendant of Haitian migrant workers to Eastern Cuba during the mid-twentieth century; his poems bridge regions usually separated by language—the Spanish and Creolophone/Francophone Caribbean—and vividly depict the distinct heritage of Haitian Cubans and their shared dreams and challenges. A scholarly introduction by translator and editor Mariana F. Past provides biographical information about the author, situates his work within Haitian diasporic literature, and addresses patterns of Haitian migration to Cuba. Batista’s original poems appear alongside facing-page English translations with annotations that clarify historical figures and events, geographical features, and Haitian cultural and religious practices. Grounded in oral storytelling traditions, Unbroken Nostalgia brings to light the collective memory and complicated hybridity of the Haitian community in Cuba and upholds Haitian Kreyòl as a language of resistance.

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Hilario Batista Félix is a Cuban Haitian poet, journalist, and linguistic activist who currently resides in Havana. Born in 1955 in Cuba’s Guantánamo province, he is a descendant of Haitian migrant workers who came to Eastern Cuba in the mid-twentieth century to harvest sugar cane. Batista studied education at the University of Havana and initially worked as a teacher; he now directs Radio Havana's daily programming in Haitian Kreyòl and is founder and president of Bannzil Kreyòl Kiba, a cultural organization dedicated to the study, preservation, and diffusion of ""creolized languages."" Mariana F. Past is professor of Spanish and contributing faculty to Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies at Dickinson College. She edited and co-translated (with Benjamin Hebblethwaite) Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Stirring the Pot of Haitian History (Liverpool University Press, 2021) from Haitian Kreyòl to English; the book earned an honorable mention from the Modern Language Association in 2022 for the Lois Roth prize.

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