Unbroken Nostalgia: An Annotated Translation of the Haitian-Cuban Poetry by Hilario Batista (b. 1955)

FAIN: FEL-289179-23

Mariana F. Past
Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA 17013-2896)

Preparation of a trilingual (English, Spanish, Kreyol) translation and critical edition of “Unbroken Nostalgia: Haitian Kreyol Poetry in Cuba” by Hilario Batista Félix (1955- ), an important Haitian-Cuban writer.

I will complete a scholarly edition (with introduction, translation, and annotations) of Nostalji san pwen ni vigil: pwezi kreyòl nan peyi Kiba (2015) by Haitian-Cuban writer Hilario Batista Félix, in collaboration with the author. A descendant of Haitian migrant workers to Eastern Cuba during the mid-twentieth century, Batista embodies and expresses Cuba’s cultural and linguistic diversity. His writing affirms Black agency by evoking Haiti’s spiritual traditions and revolutionary legacy of 1804, while also contesting enduring patterns of discrimination towards Haitians in Cuba and issues of internalized racism within the Haitian-Cuban community. The poems also convey a sense of longing for a shared heritage and homeland, a desire for belonging within the present, and a forceful commitment to anti-racist discourse. My project, the first to address Batista’s collection, sheds light on Eastern Cuba's Haitian cultural heritage and helps expand the corpus of diasporic Haitian literature.