Christian Werleigh

Biography

(Born Cap Haïtien, 1895; died in 1945).

Christian Werleigh studied at the Lycée du Cap Haïtien, where he later taught. In addition to poetry, he composed historical dramas: Tout pour le roi (King Henri Christophe is a character) and La Fleur du sacrifice; at his death he left the manuscript of an unpublished five-act play—La Mort couronnée—dedicated to Toussaint-Louverture (Morpeau 351; Hughes and Bontemps 379). Writing just after his death in 1949, Hughes and Bontemps consider Le Palmiste dans l’Ouragan (1930) his best-known work, though they also mention popular works published in France: Contre la Balustrade and La Halte au Bord du Fleuve (379).  Other volumes they mention include Le Palmiste dans la Lumière of 1934, sponsored by Haitian president Stenio Vincent, and Ma Ville, mon pays from 1944 (Hughes and Bontemps 379). Underwood translated “Poet of Farewell” and “Evening” in her Poets of Haiti (128-29).

Biography by Emeline Frix and Elizabeth Emery, 2023

Bibliography

Auguste, Louis J. “Christian Werleigh.” Ville du Cap Haïtien. https://villeducaphaitien.com/art-et-culture/littrature/174-christian-werleigh-louis-j-auguste-md-mph.html Local recollections of Werleigh from a family member.

Hughes, Langston and Arna Bontemps. The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1949. Doubleday and Company, 1949. https://archive.org/details/poetryofthenegro009355mbp

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

Underwood, Edna Worthley. The Poets of Haiti, 1782-1934. The Mosher Press, 1934.