Synopsis
The Haitian Trilogy Plays - Henri Christophe & Drums and Colours & The Haytian Earth
Published by Faraux Straus Giroux
Led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe - whose rebellion established the first black state in the Americas, but whose cruelty becomes a parable of racial pride and corruption Drums and Colours, commissioned in 1958 to celebrate the first parliament in Trinidad, is a grand pageant linking the lives of complex, ambiguous heroes; Columbus and Raleigh, Toussaint and George William Gordon, a martyr of the constitutional era From Henri Christophe's high style to the bracing vernacular of The Haytian Earth, to the epic scale and scope of Drums and Colours in these plays Walcott, one of our most celebrated poets, carved a place in the modern theater for the history of the West Indies, and a sounding room for his own maturing voice