“Researching about Haitian Women Freedom Writers and Scholars”

As I continue working on two separate book chapters on the brilliant Haitian feminist public intellectual and renowned sociologist Dr. Madeleine G. Sylvain Bouchereau & her sister Dr. Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain, I found an article in which the great Black historian Carter G. Woodson reviewed in 1937 three important studies published by the first Haitian famed anthropologist: Dr. Comhaire-Sylvain

Le Créole Haïtien, Morphologie et Syntaxe by Suzanne Sylvain; Les Contes Haïtiens, Ie Partie by Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain; Les Contes Haïtiens, IIe Partie by Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain Review by: C. G. Woodson
The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Jul., 1937), pp. 369-372

That is how I started my Saturday morning, folks 🙂

Isn’t it a good beginning?

**** Consider Woodson’s felicitous language about the significance of Comhaire-Sylvain’s anthropological and linguistic contributions:

” In one of the three volumes the author deals with Haitian Creole and in the other two with folklore. She has not only given a new picture of the language of the Haitians, but the literary treasures to which that language is a key…These volumes bearing the imprint of long and continuous research show evidence of scholarship. Certainly Madame Comhaire-Sylvain de serves to be reckoned among the most intellectual people of Haiti. If she continues her studies, as she indicates that she will, she will undoubtedly leave a favorable impression upon her time in revealing in scientific form the unknown past of the Haitian who has been misrepresented by that large…These stories herein given, however, are merely specimens of the large collection of music and folklore already collected by Madame Comhaire-Sylvain. Some day these will be published for the further light which they must throw on the background of the people of Haiti.”

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