From the moment of its independence in 1804, Haiti was a literary nation, producing primarily poetry and plays. Although by far the most common subject of Haitian writers of the nineteenth century was the struggle for liberation from the colonial power, the tiny francophone elite that produced the literature did so in French and was entirely beholden to the various literary currents and ‘schools’ that characterized (metropolitan) French literature of that century: Romanticism, the Parnassians, Symbolism...

Writers such as Antoine Dupré (1782-1816), Juste Chanlatte (1766-1828) and François Romain Lhérisson (1798-1859) are today little more than historical footnotes. One should note, however, the creation in 1817 of the literary magazine L’Abeille Haytienne by Jules Soliste (Solime) Milscen and the publication of what is regarded as the first Haitian novel, Stella. The latter is also significant in that its author, Emeric Bergeaud, was an early example of an Haitian writer forced into exile due to his opposition to the dictator of the day (Faustin I). Stella was written in exile in Saint Thomas and published in Paris in 1859, a year after Bergeaud’s death.