#350: BOIS D'EBENE / EBONY WOOD. Moss adds

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Alan Moss <alanmoss@caribsurf.com>

Jacques Roumain's "Bois-d'Ebene" was apparently first published
posthumously, by his wife  (Port-au-Prince : Imp. H. Deschamps, [1945]).
In his "Poemes" (Port-au-Prince : Editions des Antilles, 1993), which aims
to collect all of his published poetry, the work is said to have contained
four poems, which I take to be Bois-d'Ebene; L'amour, la mort; Sales
negres; and Nouveau sermon negre.  The bi-lingual "When the tom-tom beats :
selected prose and poems by Jacques Roumain" (Washington, DC : Azul
Editions, 1995, ISBN 0-9632363-8-5), while claiming to include a complete
translation of "Bois-d'Ebene", omits L'amour, la mort, however.

The 1993 collection can probably still be found in Port-au-Prince.  A more
recent collection of some of his writings, "Poesies; Griefs de l'homme
noir; la Proie et l'ombre; [&] La montagne ensorcelee : recit paysan."
(Port-au-Prince : Editions Fardin, 1998) should certainly be available, but
I am unable to put my hands on a copy immediately and so cannot say how
many of the poems from "Bois-d'Ebene" are included.

Alan Moss
Barbados