The Lasting Impact of Fleeting Encounters in Évelyne Trouillot’s Short Fiction

Abstract

How well an author is known beyond the borders of her country depends on several factors such as the language(s) in which she/he writes, the availability of their work in translation, the genres they favor, whether or not she/he is self-published, etc. In an international literary sphere that privileges the novel above all else, writers producing poems, plays, short stories, and other forms are often neglected. Or, if they happen to also be novelists, their novels are foregrounded as though they represent the entirety of their oeuvre. In this special volume that aims to bring more attention to Évelyne Trouillot’s literary production, it is especially important that her short stories are included. Trouillot entered the world of professional f iction as a short story writer (La Chambre Interdite) and her short story production has not faltered since she began writing novels.1 She has published four short story collections, and individual stories regularly appear in various anthologies as well as on websites. As is the case for her other texts, Trouillot explores a variety of themes in her short stories. Among them we find the stark juxtaposition of very distinct socioeconomic classes in fleeting moments of intimacy. The two stories I analyze here, “Primal needs” and “The Detour,” illustrate this practice.2 Both demonstrate the connections between various sectors of Haitian society as well as the ways in which they impact each other even when members of certain classes would like to maintain the pretense of distance. (Trouillot also takes up this theme in other genres, such as the novel Le Rond-Point, for example).3 The fact that Trouillot constructs these narratives by alternating perspectives between the main characters emphasizes that the story of one class cannot be told without telling that of others.