Pen as Sword: Combating the Historical Record in Fignolé's Moi, Toussaint Louverture, Avec la Plume Complice De L'auteur

Depuis deux cents ans, je survis dans la memoire des peupks. Meme dans celle de mes adversaires. Depuis deux cents ans, je survis par la legende qu'ils ont bâtie autour de mon nom et de mes actions. Depuis deux cents ans . . .je suis. Cela dit tout. - Jean-Claude Fignole Moi, Toussaint Louverture, avec la plume complice de l'auteur In Ecrire en pays assiege: Haiti: Writing under Siege, Marie-Agnes Sourieau and Kathleen Balutansky propose that Haitian literature, perpetually engagee, has long served as "the locus for social criticism and activism under political oppression." (25) One of the major weapons that is wielded in these literary undertakings is the figure of Toussaint Louverture, who, the authors suggest, has operated "both as a founding myth for the nation and as a catharsis in the process of self-recognition." (26) Although Toussaint indisputably plays a crucial part in the Haitian imaginary, and that of the Caribbean at large, I believe that the function he serves is not necessarily that of triggering or facilitating "catharsis," because the term connotes an effect which is excessively stable or static. On this question, Charles Forsdick concurs in a chapter of the recently published Echoes of the Haitian Revolution, "Arguing around Toussaint": "Far from being reduced to the status of a static historical figure, fixed through the processes of monumentalization, Toussaint has continued to trigger reflection on the colonial past and the postcolonial present - and this not least in Haiti [. . .]." (43) Indeed, some of the most recent literary representations of Toussaint are lively interrogations of both past and contemporary realities, stirring up fighting words and images - hardly releasing tensions or eliminating complexes, but rather exaggerating them and deliberately troubling the waters. These texts are works of war, lashing out against ignorance and oppression on all levels. An excellent example is Jean-Claude Fignole's Moi, Toussaint Louv ertine, avec la plume complice de l'auteur, which was published by Editions Plume et Encre during Haiti's bicentennial year, and to date has not received substantial critical treatment. As a poignant "fictional autobiography" (the first literary endeavor of its kind1), this text employs what I call "imaginative deconstruction" to simultaneously explain and critique the Haitian Revolution and analyze what has happened to the Republic of Haiti since 1804. Moi, Toussaint is fascinatingly complex and historically dense, incorporating a number of Spiralist tendencies2: the text surveys and cross-examines over two hundred years of history, speculates as to the personal motivations underlying the actions of the renowned Haitian leader, and demonstrates why Toussaint is central to, but controversial within, Haitian history. I argue that Fignole's representation of Toussaint provides a tertiary space within which to establish a revisionist dialogue about Haiti's place in the world and world history. The writer mobilizes Toussaint as a. porte-parole to deconstruct the history of Haiti, contest the historical record, and reframe the relationship between the world's first black republic and the world at large. Moi, Toussaint is structured as a conversation that supposedly takes place over twenty-four hours between the general and Fignole himself (although the author is never explicitly named). Their stream-of-consciousness exchange reads at times like a confession, and at others, a confrontation. Toussaint, from within his freezing prison cell in the Jura,3 introduces the "jeune homme" that is his interlocutor. Although at first their rapport is rather formal, Toussaint initiates an eventual change from "vous" to "tu": an important, if imaginary, shift, which signals familiarity and a measure of trust. Fignole thus lends his ear to the currents of thought and emotion beneath the surface of the history books, permitting the symbol that is Toussaint Louverture to explain himself directly to the world and his critics, and ultimately to have the last word. …