In South Florida May is Haitian Heritage Month and to kick off the month of events, Sunday is the seventh annual Little Haiti Book Festival. The festival will take place at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, 212 NE 59th Ter., Miami.
In Kreyol and English, authors from Haiti and the Haitian diaspora will host literary panels, craft talks and workshops for writers. All of them will be available to sign books. MJ Fievre is the Caribbean coordinator for the Miami book fair and urged non-Haitians to come out to the event.
"I believe the Little Haiti book festival is a great opportunity for anyone, not just people with Haitian ties, to discover aspects of Haiti that they may not know,” Fievre said.
Organizers believe it is important for South Florida to learn positive attributes about Haitian culture, especially its impact and legacy to literature."We learn a lot in the media about the difficulties the Haitian community faces, and of course all those problems are true, but there is also an aspect of Haiti that is very often overlooked,” said Fievre.
There will be literary workshops and a number of activities for children, including a storytelling session with famous Haitian author Edwidge Danticat. Dancing and drumming performances will take place throughout the event. Also on-site will be booksellers, selling a wide range of books by authors from Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. The festival is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. and will conclude with a historic ‘ra ra’ dance that will include a band playing Haitian root music.