Meet Dany Laferrière. A Haitian-Canadian Novelist who is the only Haitian member of the Académie Française (French Academy). He was inducted in May 2015. The Académie Française is an elite club of 40 “Immortals,” as the members are known, that serves as the official guardian of the French language. The French Institute is home to the Académie Française.
The group is so exclusive that most of France’s greatest writers were never admitted as members. This academy consists mostly of white men. There are just five women among the members, and Mr. Laferrière is the only person of color. The average age was well over 70 in a recent tally by the French media.
According to Loop Haiti, recently, thanks to Dany Laferrière, the word Vertières has been included in the French dictionary. Vertières, located in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti is where the Battle of #Vertieres took place and is recognized by many historians as the Haitian Revolution’s most significant battle. Laferrière describes it as “little place that has seen the only true negro revolution, where the slave has managed to dismantle all the values of colonialism established to become a citizen.”
