Pierre Faubert

Biography

(Born in Les Cayes, 1806, died near Paris in 1868)

Pierre Faubert was born to a revolutionary general and a mother who found the money to send him to study in France (along with his brother). From 1837 to 1843 he served as the director of the Lycée National in Port-au-Prince where he had his students perform a play he had written: Ogé ou le Préjugé de Couleur (1841, published 1846). Closely affiliated with Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer during this time, he married the president's stepdaughter, Josephine ("Fine") Laraque whose letters he published in 1847. They had at least two children: Fénelon and Pétion (Morpeau, 68-69). Many of his poems, like those collected in Les Poésies fugitives were rooted in romance and patriotism. In 1860, Faubert was chosen by President Geffard as the debt agreement negotiator between Haiti and the Vatican. He died in Vanves, just outside of Paris, in July 1868 (Morpeau 69; Berrou, 92).

Biography by Emeline Frix, 2022

Bibliography

Berrou Raphaël, and Pradel Pompilus. Histoire de la littérature haïtienne illustrée par les textes. Ed. Caraïbes, 1975.

Daut, Marlene. The Tropics of Haiti: Race and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1789-1865. Oxford UP, 2015.

Morpeau, Louis. Anthologie d'un siècle de poésie haïtienne 1817-1925. Bossard, 1924.