A novel of fine sensibility, powerfully meditative, Les Immortelles (The Immortals, in the English translation by Nathan H. Dize; however, I had access to the original French version) by multi-awarded writer and archeologist Haitian writer Makenzy Orcel makes immortal simple lives of prostitites from Grand-Rue, in Port-au-Prince. Short yet written with a high precision of convening feelings and memories.
There are individual stories of women of all ages and social conditions that ended up as prostitutes in Haiti. An anonymous writer is collecting stories of women who sold pleasure on the street who disappeared under the rubble of the tragic earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Thus, they are becoming immortal, through the pen of the writer who becomes the stories in exchange of sex.
Although a very short novel, it has more than one layer of meaning, the second one dealing with the writer´s fate and its magic powers of keeping time from fading away and keeping the flame of life always lit.
Les Immortelles makes for ever alive people whose lives we forget to acknowledge, based on social prejudice and narrowmindness. Writers can change our view, by convening the power of words to keep them alive through the existential and geological earthquakes of life.
Rating: 4.5 stars
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