The poet Josaphat-Robert Large died 9 years ago

Nine years ago, on October 28, 2017, Josaphat-Robert Large died in New York. Born on November 15, 1942, in Jérémie, he was a poet, novelist, and photographer who built his work in exile.

Exile

As a student, he participated in the early 1960s in strikes against the regime of François Duvalier. After being imprisoned, he had to leave Haiti and arrived in the United States at the end of 1963. He took part in attempts to invade Haiti to overthrow Duvalier, but the U.S. Navy intercepted him at sea with about thirty armed men. He was incarcerated in Dade County and prosecuted for weapons trafficking.

Writing in New York

He studied English at Columbia University and photography at the New York Institute of Photography. He co-founded the theater troupe Kouidor with Syto Cavé, Jacques Charlier, and Hervé Denis, and wrote for Haiti Progrès, Haiti en Marche, and Le Nouvelliste. His first collection, Nerve du Vent, was published in Paris in 1975. He then published novels such as The Paths of Hell and Mississippi Blues, as well as poems in Haitian Creole like Pè Sèt!.

A Recognized Body of Work

His novel The Tears Surrounding the Land, published in 2002, won the Caribbean Literary Prize in 2003. Two conferences were dedicated to his work, at Florida International University in 2002 and then at Fordham University in March 2006. He was a member of the Société des gens de lettres de France and the PEN Club America.