“Ida Faubert (Christian first name Gertrude Florentine Félicitée Ida) was born in Port-au-Prince on February 14, 1882 and died in Joinville-le-Pont, 1969 ) was a Haitian writer, daughter of the former president of Haïti, Lysius Salomon. She lived in France from 1914 to 1969, where she married ; she was related to feminist and artistic movements. She wrote her books in French.”
According to Kreyolicious
Ida Faubert led a fascinating life. She married twice, that in itself unusual for a Haitian woman of her era. She was born in Port-au-Prince on February 14, 1882 as Gertrude Florentine Félicitée Ida Salomon, the daughter of Lysius Salomon, Haiti’s president from 1879 to 1888 (being a Haitian, his name was actually Louis Etienne Félicité Lysius Salomon). Faubert’s mother was Salomon’s stepdaughter, a matter that was well-known in Haiti at the time, according to historian Charles Dupuy, but wasn’t publicly acknowledged.
According to the book Notes From the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti by Michael Deibert, Salomon was born in Les Cayes, and was a member of Haiti’s powerful and emerging elite from that city. Max Laudun in his book To Set the Record Straight: From Slavery, Independence, Revolution depicts him as a man of strategy. According to Laudun, Salomon once offered Mole St. Nicolas to U.S president Chester A. Arthur for use as a base in the 1880s.
When her father fled Haiti in 1888, little Ida was still a child. Lysius Salomon took the family to France where he died without setting foot in Haiti ever again. His grave lies in the de Passy cemetery in Paris.
As for Ida, she returned to Haiti as an adult, but she didn’t permanently establish herself there, returning to France in 1914. Her first marriage to Philippe Joseph Léonce Laraque ended in divorce. They had a daughter Jacqueline, who died as an infant, and to whom Ida Faubert dedicated an eventual poem. Her second marriage to Andre Faubert produced a son, Raoul.
Ida Faubert published several poems. In the late 1930s, she published Cœur des Îles [Heart of the Islands]. She is highly regarded as a major author in Haiti’s literary cannon. For instance, Renée Brenda Larrier writing in Francophone Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean cites Ida Faubert as one of the most visible of Haitian female poets, having had her work published in Haiti Litéraire et Scientifique, a major literary journal of nineteenth century Haiti.
Ida Faubert died in 1969 in Paris. Thirteen years before, she had been honored by the French government with the prestigious Chevalier de l’Ordre Honneur et Mérite or Knight of Honor and Merit Order.
Today, many of the Salomon-Faubert descendants live in France, including Jean Faubert, Ida’s grandson from her son Raoul Faubert.
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