“Ayiti” by Roxanne Gay

This is a collection of short stories by Roxanne Gay, whose other works I have also read previously if you want to find those posts. This is the only fiction that I have read from her, and she mentioned when she visited campus for a talk that she does consider herself a fiction writer.

Ayiti itself is the indigenous name for Haiti, which is where Gay is from. Hence, all of the stories have to do with being Haitian, and most of them are about Haiti’s relationship to the US. People wanting to immigrate, those that have immigrated, those with other family members that immigrated, all of those stories are in here.

Reading this immediately after Hunger, which Italked about in this post, was really striking. There’s a longer story about a woman from Haiti who marries a rich man from the US. They have their honeymoon on Haiti where the woman is kidnapped by a group of men who rape her repeatedly. She returns and is traumatized by this, and eventually gives birth to a baby boy. The story is difficult, but also really beautiful. The way Gay talks about this protagonist and her own assault in Hunger is really strikingly similar, I have to wonder if that was her way of processing it. Or if it was her way of representing her own experiences.

I really liked this book, it is a quick read but there’s a huge variety of stories here that give a depth to the Haitian experience. I would recommend, especially if you are like me and hadn’t read Gay’s fiction before.