page_title: Dézafi
section_title: Plot
hierarchical_section_title: Dézafi / Plot
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Vue sur la baie de Port-au-Prince depuis l'hotel Oloffson
context_page_description: Dézafi by Frankétienne is the first novel to be written and published in Haitian Creole. Released in 1975, it has since been translated into both English and French and received a number of awards including the Best Translated Book Award of 2019.
  Dézafi is set in Haiti and centers around a voodoo priest, Sintil, who is terrorizing the village of Bouanèf and enslaving residents by turning them into zonbis. The book ends when the zonbis wake up and rile the populace into overthrowing Sintil, ripping him to pieces.
  Written with a subtle plot line, most of Dézafi is written in an abstract style that captures the Haitian experience without directly communicating storyline. This structure is a function of the spiralist movement which Frankétienne belonged to.
context_section_description: Dézafi mostly takes place in the rural Haitian village of Bouanèf but there are some scenes in Port-au-Prince. The core storyline focuses on a plantation owned by Sintil, the local oungan (vodou priest), and run by zonbis. The zonbis, humans brought back to life from a death-like state by an oungan to work, are essentially slaves. They cannot speak, cannot think, and have no more cognitive function than is required to work the plantation. 
  Sintil controls the zonbis with the help of his daughter Siltana and a hired man named Zofè. Sintil frequently reminds Siltana that she must remember to never give the zonbis salt because if they taste it they will wake up. At the beginning of the book Siltana is happy to follow her father's directives. However when a new zonbi named Klodonis is brought to the plantation she falls in love with him and loses interest in her normal duties on the ranch. She is devastated by the fact that Klodonis is in a permanent stupor and cannot reciprocate her feelings. Her frustration builds throughout the book until at last in desperation she gives Klodonis salt and restores him to being fully human. Unfortunately, far from being in love with her, Klodonis knocks her to the ground and immediately revives the rest of the zonbis, launching a rebellion against Sintil which eventually spreads to the village and culminates in Sintil's bloody demise.
  The majority of the main plotline happens in the very end of the book. There are, however, several smaller plotlines sprinkled throughout Dézafi, which focus on other villagers in Bouanèf and how their lives are affected by Sintil’s presence. Jéròm, for example, is a villager who hides in his brother’s attic for almost the entirety of the book out of fear of Sintil. Another character, Gaston, uses his winnings from a lucky day at gambling to travel to Port-au-Prince. Unfortunately, once there he cannot earn enough money to make a stable living and languishes on the streets for years before attempting to return to Bouanèf just as the revolution is taking place. However when he sees the chaotic revolution occurring in the village he turns around and walks back towards Port-au-Prince. Still another villager, Jédéyon, lives alone in an old house with his niece Rita. Jédéyon has been abandoned by his wife and family who left for the United States without him and he constantly berates and chastises Rita, who takes care of him and the house. He dies before the rebellion.
  There is an additional abstract plotline which centers on a series of cock fight (dézafis, in Haitian). When Sintil is at last apprehended and killed it is at one of these cock fights.
caption: Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, where portions of Dézafi are set.
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