In this column, Marc Sony Ricot talks to us about his intimate relationship with books, but atssi of the rarity of this object in his city in Haiti.
I’m writing this column in the middle of the night. Delmas 60. The town is silent, a grave in a cemetery. Isn’t it the season of the Dead? I listen Riva Précil on my JBL speaker. There is something mysterious in Riva’s voice that transports me to unknown shores. I’m reading a short book by Henry Miller. I bought it last September at Librairie La Pléiade, in Pétion-Ville. After the newspaper editorial meetings The Nouvelliste, I happily go to the bookseller. Sometimes with full pockets after pay, sometimes with broken pockets.
Bookstores are rare stores in the world where you can go with empty pockets and enjoy the merchandise. You cannot enter a restaurant, a shop or the bakery next door without a water bottle and start eating. When I go to La Pléiade, I look at the cover of the new releases, I smell their scents, I read the titles, extracts and incipits. With empty pockets, I come out with a lot of information. I often have the impression that I will be charged for each sentence and poem read.
Credits: Wendy van Zyl
“We don’t have enough for books. »
I am fascinated by books because they were rare during my adolescence. Even when I started by going to several libraries in Port-au-Prince, I found that it was not enough. It took me a while to own my own book. I didn’t have the money to buy them, even from the second-hand booksellers on Avenue Christophe. My mother was a food seller at the Salomon market. The profits weren’t for the books. There were tuition fees, rent, medication, all the other daily stuff. Each time I asked her for some tickets to buy, she replied: “We don’t have enough for the books.” I was angry. As a child, I did not yet understand our reality.
The poems and sentences from books that I could not lend to the library, I copied them into a notebook. I still have this notebook to remind me of these precious moments. This notebook is my little madeleine, it takes me back in time, it awakens the memories hidden in me. He keeps alive in me places that helped me put a little light in my head. Thousands of young people are born and grow up with a thirst for books and light. After my first job as a cultural journalist, I co-founded the Kettly Mars Literary club in Cité Soleil with the aim of circulating books in my neighborhood. We started at my place in Sarthe 45 with my friend Jean Cajou, Jean Ronald Montas and a few others. Sometimes we had a surprise visit. We can no longer travel in this area today because of armed bandits.
READ ALSO
Haiti: deaths and renewed tensions in neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince
“Whoever you are (…) put books everywhere! »
I spent two years at the Tabarre municipal library as chief animator. It’s a magical place that has nourished my imagination. Every Thursday I led a reading club for students from Unika University and local schoolchildren. Some participants had never encountered a book in their lives. I enjoyed talking to them about the works of Évelyne and Lyonel Trouillot, Yanick Lahens, Kettly Mars, Marie Célie Agnant, Inema Jeudi, James Noel, Emmelie Prophète, Bonel Auguste, etc. I invited them to read the classics Roumain, Alexis, Etzer Vilaire. But how do you find the books if they are not available at the library? It’s expensive. The same refrain as when I was young. For their mother, “there is not enough for books”. There is still not enough for books in our house. What must we do ? It was Miller who said in the book I’m reading tonight that “the books a man reads are determined by what he is himself.”
Credits: Iwaria
What are we going to put in the hands of our youth if there is not enough for books? Books are needed everywhere in the city. In schools, in orphanages, in civil service offices, everywhere. The defense of books and the encouragement to read requires a policy focused on the visibility of books. It is because we see books almost everywhere and we see people reading around us, in public spaces, on television, in films, that we are encouraged to read. to become interested in books, to start – or get back – to reading. Victor Hugo wrote : “Whoever you are who wants to cultivate, invigorate, edify, soften, soothe, put books everywhere! »
My friend Pierre Martial, a great reading activist, told me that “it is not those who already read that we must encourage and convince, not those who usually frequent bookstores, libraries and other “official” places. » and cultural, but all the others! » We need books for everyone else. We need a society where light is available to everyone. Grants for writers, publishers and booksellers. Libraries are needed everywhere. Because a book can bring light to a heart and save people from their destiny. It can give hope. We lack hope these days. Giving books means sharing hope. It’s shedding light on the shadows of our uncertainties.
READ ALSO