Lyonel Trouillot


Lyonel Trouillot is a novelist and poet in French and Haitian Creole, a journalist and a professor of French and Creole literature in Port-au-Prince.

Early life

Lyonel Trouillot was born in a family of lawyers. The writer Évelyne Trouillot and the writer and educator Jocelyne Trouillot are his sisters. Following his parents' divorce in the late 1960s, he went to the United States with his mother. He returned to Haiti at age 19, in 1975.
Between 1980-82, political repression forced Trouillot to emigrate to Miami.
He studied at law, but he switched to literature early in his career.

Career

Trouillot has contributed to different newspapers and magazines in Haiti. He has published poetry, and also writes song lyrics for such musical artists as Tambou Libète and Manno Charlemagne.
Trouillot is a co-editor of the journal Cahiers du Vendredi.
Along with his sister Evelyne Trouillot and her daughter Nadève Ménard, he founded a writer's organisation named Pré-Texte.
In 2014 he wrote together with Raoul Peck and Pascal Bonitzer the script for Peck's feature film Murder in Pacot.

Politics

Trouillot is known for his political stances, and for his resistance to the Haitian Duvalierist dictatorship. He was also part of the Collective Non of intellectuals and artists that helped to build momentum for the U.S. and paramilitary backed ouster of the democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He was a member of the unelected transitional government following the departure of Aristide, as a cabinet minister of culture.
The unelected transitional government of Gerard Latortue was shown to be involved in massive human rights violations and to work closely with the "families" the local elite groups within the country while being heavily funded by the US bush regime: http://www.ijdh.org/CSHRhaitireport.pdf

Select bibliography

Novels

Trouillot was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2010.
In 2011, he was awarded the Prix Wepler for his novel Yanvalou pour Charlie. For La Belle Amour humane, he was awarded the Grand Prix du Roman Métis, the Geneva Book Fair Literary Prize, and the Gitanjali Literary Prize.
In 2013, he was awarded the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde for his work, Parabole du failli.