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Cécé

by

Translated from by

Paperback ISBN: 9781962770415

Ebook ISBN: 9781962770422

SKU: N/A Category: Tag:
This item will be released on September 25, 2025.
$18.00

Cécé, née Célia Jérôme, lives in the Cité of Divine Power, a neighborhood warped by gang life in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Here she has witnessed the deaths of her mother and grandmother; here she takes care of her bedridden Uncle Frédo. At night in the Cité, she hears gunfire—the ever-present sound of men disputing their territory—alongside radios on full volume, vendors selling their wares, children fighting and playing. Caught up in “the race to exist,” Cécé buys herself a smartphone and adopts the social media moniker Cécé La Flamme, amassing a following by posting images of her surroundings: her lunch, gullies, and stark images of dead bodies on the street. For Cécé, these document her movements in the Cité; for her followers, they are glimpses of a world wholly other than their own, brutal but compulsive viewing. Cécé is a portrait of a young woman desperate to lay claim to her experience. It is a searing account of the commodification of violence in the age of social media, of community and survival, of human connection.

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Praise

Cécé feels like the arrival of a bold new talent, and its heroine’s voice, amplified by Aidan Rooney’s sparkling translation, is fresh and full of passionate energy as it rips open a whole new view of Haiti’s tormented earth.
Madison Smartt Bell
The best book on Haiti in a very long time ... powerful, spot on, likely the best written. This splendid writer's talent grabs us by the throat from the start, tightens the grip with each chapter, relaxes later on, then grips us again at the end, leaving us speechless.
Dany Laferrière
Emmelie Prophète renders the lives of others, particularly women, in tight prose and sharp narration.
Yves Chemla, Le National
This audacious novelist invests her heroine with glory as she narrates on the social networks the lives of women from the cité. Totally believable, an indelible voice.
Valérie Marin La Meslée, Le Point
A powerful, breathtaking novel with a diverse cast of ordinary people, this book tattoos onto our memory.
Ricot Marc Sony, Le Nouvelliste
Emmelie Prophète's fifth novel is immediately gripping. The writing borrows its descriptive immediacy from journalism and the characters confront the day to day grind of existence. A compelling read.
Anne Bocandé, Jeune Afrique
An extraordinary novel. The female characters are striking in their radiance.
Michel Désautels, Désautels le Dimanche
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