Table of Contents

Foreword, by Edwidge Danticat Preface: Beat Back the Darkness Acknowledgments Introduction: The Women of Millet Mountain Part I: Resistance in Survival YOLANDE MEVS - My Head Burning with the Burden ALINA "TIBEBE" CAJUSTE - A Baby Left on the Doorstep in a Rotten Basket LOVLY JOSAPHAT - I Always Live That Hope ROSELIE JEAN-JUSTE - A Woman Named Roselie Who Fought Back VENANTE DUPLAN - I Don't Have the Call, I Don't Have the Response MARIE SONIA PANTAL - School Part II: Resistance as Expression LELENNE GILLES - I'll Die with the Words on My Lips MARCELINE YRELIBN - Singing a Woman's Misery ALINA "TIBEBE" CAJUSTE - Getting the Poetry YANIQUE GUITEAU DANDIN - The Struggle for Creole GRACITA OSIAS - Chaleron's Lesson FLORENCIA PIERRE - The Cultural Soul MARTINE FOURCAND Expanding the Space of Expression Part III: Resistance for Political and Economic Change ALERTE BELANCE - My Blood and My Breath YANNICK ETIENNE - A Grain of Sand CLAUDETTE PHENE - A Little Light YOLETTE ETIENNE - Jumping over the Fire LOUISE MONFILS - The Samaritan VITA TELCY - Five Cans of Corn MARIE JOSEE ST. FIRMIN - Sharing the Dream SELITANE JOSEPH - Chunk of Gold ROSEMIE BELVIUS - Reshuffling the Cards Part IV: Resistance for Gender Justice LISE-MARIE DEJEAN - Minister of the Status and Rights of Women GRACITA OSIAS - The Marriage Question LOUISE MONPILS - Walking with My Little Coffin CLAUDETTE WERLEIGH - Women's Business YOLANDE MEVS - Support for the Children YANIQUE GUITEAU DANDIN - A Country's Problems, A Woman's Problems MARIE ]OSEE ST. FIRMIN - Deciding My Life OLGA BENOIT - Assuming the Title "Feminist" JOSETTE PERARD - The Carriage Is Leaving Part V: Resistance Transforming Power CLAUDETTE WERLEIGH - Lighting Candles of Hope MARIE SONIA DELY - Sharing the Breadfruit LISE-MARIE DEJEAN - The People Say Jump MYRIAM MERLET - The More People Dream YANNICK ETIENNE - You Can't Eat Gumbo with One Finger MYRTO CELESTIN SAUREL - Rocks in the River KESTA OCCIDENT - A Stubborn Hope Epilogue: Resistance as Solidarity ALERTE BELANCE - Get Up, Shake Your Bodies Notes Glossary For Further Research and Involvement Bibliography

About the Author

Beverly Bell is associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and runs the economic and social justice group Other Worlds. Winner of the Outstanding Journalism Award from Women's International Center and the PEN-New Mexico Award for Social Justice in Literature, she is the author of Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance and Fault Lines: Views across Haiti's Divide, both from Cornell. Edwidge Danticat is the renowned author of several bestselling books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory; Brother, I'm Dying; and Krik? Krak!

Reviews

"This is painful reading; it shows much suffering but also much remarkable transcendence. Bell's book vocalizes this, but its point is not merely archival. These testimonies are meant to move readers to action."-Publishers Weekly "In this moving book on opposing tyranny and degradation, activist Bell ... gives face to the numbers by providing a forum for indigenous women to speak about their lives... An antidote to cynicism, the book not only introduces American readers to an array of courageous role models but also proves that change is possible."-Library Journal "The women Bell interviews, many of whom are veteran activists in Haiti's grassroots democracy movement, recount stories of being raped, struggling to feed their families, and being subject to political torture... Bell does her best to balance the painful lives of the women she interviews with the recognition that under such conditions, mere daily survival of the body and the spirit takes tremendous resilience... Perhaps one day the small acts of rebellion that Bell celebrates may help to create a movement capable of political transformation, so that the example of Haiti once again frightens the powerful of the world."-Voice Literary Supplement "Walking on Fire provides powerful, moving witness to the desperate struggle of these women to protest and-more important-survive. The women who speak out in the pages of Beverly Bell's book offer an eloquent portrait of a poverty that is unrelenting in its meanness."-Women's Review of Books "Rarely does the voice of Haitian women in Haiti fighting for their rights emerge so clearly to relate their own experiences, battles, and hopes...Despite the harshness of their lives, the honesty and healing potential of the women somehow rises above the unimaginable and lands at the readers' feet."-The Haitian Times "Walking on Fire illustrates how the dynamics of corporate globalization overlay with local hierarchies, prejudices and systems of patriarchy to impoverish and marginalize women. Most searingly, Walking on Fire reveals the raw violence embedded in these overlapping systems of domination... The emotions of horror stirred by the book are matched by a sense of awe and inspiration of the women, many of whom do struggle just to survive, ... to fight for justice."-Focus on the Corporation "Beverly Bell's remarkable book allows thirty-eight Haitian women to speak for themselves. Defying victim status, together they tell the story of how Haiti's poor and dispossessed women have fought for their personal and collective survival. They weave together an inspiring study in resistance and alternative models of power."-Susan Sarandon "In transcribing the istwa-stories and history-of these Haitian women, Beverly Bell opens a door that has been closed for much too long. Oppressed beyond imagination, these voices convey sensibility, courage, creativity and power. I am moved at my core."-Margaret Randall, author of Sandino's Daughters Revisited "Walking on Fire is an extraordinary work. The stories are tremendously moving, powerfully told, and leave one gasping for breath, both at the horror and at the enormity of women's heroism, perseverance, and resistance."-Bettina Aptheker, Professor and Chair, Women's Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz "The future of engaged feminism is secure if it embraces, without ambivalence, the struggle of women living with a very different kind of violence than that encountered in North America or Europe. Beverly Bell has done us a great service in bringing to light these varied and vivid testimonies of Haiti's cruel modernity and women's resistance to it. Many of the authors of these essays do indeed walk on fire. Some, like Alerte Belance-left for hacked to death after being dumped, along with other activists, in a notorious potter's field-have survived a long, barefoot walk on hot coals and emerged with a message for all of us: 'In my mutilated state, my neck nearly cut in two, my tongue cut in two, my left hand cut in two, my right arm cut in two, God rescued me for a reason. He put his force in me so I could struggle for women, not only to have life, but rights and freedom.'"-Paul Farmer, author of Haiti after the Earthquake "Walking on Fire is a book of exceptional merit and makes a significant original contribution to general understandings of women's resistance to poverty and oppression in many forms. Beverly Bell is able to provide a deeply compassionate understanding of narratives, physically crushing and morally uplifting experiences, and structures of poor women's lives who seem to be in chaos."-Josh DeWind, Director, International Migration Program at the Social Science Research Council

Most people know that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but what that means for the Haitian people is usually lost in a morass of statistical data. In this moving book on opposing tyranny and degradation, activist Bell, who is the founder and director of the Center for Economic Justice in Albuquerque, NM, gives face to the numbers by providing a forum for indigenous women to speak about their lives. Some of the 38 oral histories here come from illiterate farmers and market women. Other informants are well schooled, earning far more than subsistence wages as teachers and writers. Nonetheless, all of Bell's sources are dedicated to the alleviation of poverty and believe that food, housing, and education are entitlements and that gender equity is inseparable from economic justice. Their articulate views make for exciting reading. Likewise, their resistance to the status quo is inspiring. An antidote to cynicism, the book not only introduces American readers to an array of courageous role models but also proves that change is possible. Highly recommended for all public and academic libraries. Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

"This is painful reading; it shows much suffering but also much remarkable transcendence. Bell's book vocalizes this, but its point is not merely archival. These testimonies are meant to move readers to action."-Publishers Weekly "In this moving book on opposing tyranny and degradation, activist Bell ... gives face to the numbers by providing a forum for indigenous women to speak about their lives... An antidote to cynicism, the book not only introduces American readers to an array of courageous role models but also proves that change is possible."-Library Journal "The women Bell interviews, many of whom are veteran activists in Haiti's grassroots democracy movement, recount stories of being raped, struggling to feed their families, and being subject to political torture... Bell does her best to balance the painful lives of the women she interviews with the recognition that under such conditions, mere daily survival of the body and the spirit takes tremendous resilience... Perhaps one day the small acts of rebellion that Bell celebrates may help to create a movement capable of political transformation, so that the example of Haiti once again frightens the powerful of the world."-Voice Literary Supplement "Walking on Fire provides powerful, moving witness to the desperate struggle of these women to protest and-more important-survive. The women who speak out in the pages of Beverly Bell's book offer an eloquent portrait of a poverty that is unrelenting in its meanness."-Women's Review of Books "Rarely does the voice of Haitian women in Haiti fighting for their rights emerge so clearly to relate their own experiences, battles, and hopes...Despite the harshness of their lives, the honesty and healing potential of the women somehow rises above the unimaginable and lands at the readers' feet."-The Haitian Times "Walking on Fire illustrates how the dynamics of corporate globalization overlay with local hierarchies, prejudices and systems of patriarchy to impoverish and marginalize women. Most searingly, Walking on Fire reveals the raw violence embedded in these overlapping systems of domination... The emotions of horror stirred by the book are matched by a sense of awe and inspiration of the women, many of whom do struggle just to survive, ... to fight for justice."-Focus on the Corporation "Beverly Bell's remarkable book allows thirty-eight Haitian women to speak for themselves. Defying victim status, together they tell the story of how Haiti's poor and dispossessed women have fought for their personal and collective survival. They weave together an inspiring study in resistance and alternative models of power."-Susan Sarandon "In transcribing the istwa-stories and history-of these Haitian women, Beverly Bell opens a door that has been closed for much too long. Oppressed beyond imagination, these voices convey sensibility, courage, creativity and power. I am moved at my core."-Margaret Randall, author of Sandino's Daughters Revisited "Walking on Fire is an extraordinary work. The stories are tremendously moving, powerfully told, and leave one gasping for breath, both at the horror and at the enormity of women's heroism, perseverance, and resistance."-Bettina Aptheker, Professor and Chair, Women's Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz "The future of engaged feminism is secure if it embraces, without ambivalence, the struggle of women living with a very different kind of violence than that encountered in North America or Europe. Beverly Bell has done us a great service in bringing to light these varied and vivid testimonies of Haiti's cruel modernity and women's resistance to it. Many of the authors of these essays do indeed walk on fire. Some, like Alerte Belance-left for hacked to death after being dumped, along with other activists, in a notorious potter's field-have survived a long, barefoot walk on hot coals and emerged with a message for all of us: 'In my mutilated state, my neck nearly cut in two, my tongue cut in two, my left hand cut in two, my right arm cut in two, God rescued me for a reason. He put his force in me so I could struggle for women, not only to have life, but rights and freedom.'"-Paul Farmer, author of Haiti after the Earthquake "Walking on Fire is a book of exceptional merit and makes a significant original contribution to general understandings of women's resistance to poverty and oppression in many forms. Beverly Bell is able to provide a deeply compassionate understanding of narratives, physically crushing and morally uplifting experiences, and structures of poor women's lives who seem to be in chaos."-Josh DeWind, Director, International Migration Program at the Social Science Research Council