Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes

Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes (1949) is the first play by Derek Walcott, written when he was 19 years old.[1] It is about the self-declared King Henri Christophe of Haiti, a former slave who became a general under Toussaint Louverture in the Haitian Revolution. Later, he ruled the northern part of the nation from 1807 to 1820, first as president and from 1811 as king.[2] At the time the South was governed by the president Alexandre Pétion, a gens de couleur (free man of color; in Haiti, such people were generally of French and African descent).

The play was first produced in 1952 in London, by Errol Hill[3] and in 1954 at the University College of the West Indies. In 1968, it was revived at the Trinidad and Tobago Festival.[4]

Bibliography

• Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes, Advocate Co., 1949; reprint, G. Collier, Justus Liebig University, 1993

References

1. "Derek Walcott", Poetry Foundation
2. Doris Lorraine Garraway (2008). Tree of Liberty: Cultural Legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-2686-5.
3. Paul Breslin (2001). Nobody's Nation: Reading Derek Walcott. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-07427-6.
4. Peter O. Stummer; Christopher Balme, eds. (1996). Fusion of cultures?. Rodopi. ISBN 978-90-420-0043-8.