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Abstract

In an effort to maintain power in an authoritarian state, dictators target, silence, and eliminate those unwilling to conform. In Marie-Célie Agnant's 2015 novel Femmes aux temps des carnassiers, Mika Pelrin and her daughter Soledad are kidnapped, raped, and tortured by the Tonton Macoutes because of Mika's refusal to be silenced by the Duvalier regime in 1958. Through this fictional account based on appalling historical events and the tragic fate of journalist Yvonne Hakim Rimpel, Agnant insists on the vital societal role played by courageous women like her defiant character Mika who, through nonconformity and at the risk of their own lives, dare to stand up against corruption and abuse of power. A secondary storyline presents Junon, Soledad's daughter produced by the aforementioned rape, striving to earn her traumatized mother's acceptance and to discover the truth of her origins. With the help of her grandmother Mika's reluctant disclosure, Junon learns about the events of January 1958 and their enduring impact on her family. The portrayal of these female relationships reinforces the beauty in unconventional families, the strength required to heal multigenerational trauma, and the diversity of personalities who can restore humanity to a shattered family. Agnant boldly declares not only that such courageous women as Mika, Soledad, and Junon belong, despite their unwillingness to conform, but indeed that they are also the heroes of the devastating history of mid-twentieth-century Haiti. Such women are in fact the ones who have the potential to change their long-afflicted nation for the better.

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