V. Lesson from New-York.

In her 1985 collection of short stories titled Land of Many Colors , her characters often found themselves in the US as well as in Black or Northern Arabic Africa. The city of New-York which serves as a backdrop for one short story, "Three Women in Manhattan ," is the cosmopolitan place par excellence where unity is born out of diversity. The three women's story unites New Yorkers and foreigners, Spanish and Caribbean immigrants from Guadeloupe and Haiti . Claude, a newly arrived immigrant from Guadeloupe and protagonist of the story, shares strong similarities with both Elinor, a successful African-American professor and writer, and Véra, a nostalgic Haitian immigrant and unpublished writer. What bonds the three women in spite of their diverse background underlines what unites members of the Black Diaspora in the Americas : each woman has experienced misery, and each wants to surpass it.

ARTICLE LINK: Geggus, "The Haitian Revolution"