ABSTRACT
The novel Taste of Salt, tells the story of modern Haiti at the time Bertrand Aristide has just been elected president.1 Francis Temple writes this story from the perspective of two teenagers, Djo, one of Aristide’s bodyguards and Jeremie, who is educated in a convent, where she is secluded from the violence continually erupting on the streets of Port au Prince. As the story opens, Djo is lying in a hospital bed weakened from the Macoutes’ bludgeons. His eyes are swollen shut and he is barely able to speak. Aristide has asked Jeremie to sit by Djo’s bedside and offer him what comfort she can. He has also requested that Jeremie tape record Djo’s life story. ‘If I tell my story,’ whispers Djo, ‘I will not die entirely… Titid loves me. Also, Titid is a politician. He knows how to use stories to make things happen, to make the way of the world change’ (Temple, 1992, p. 7). During one of their visits, Djo remembers the following story that inspires his work with Pe Pierre, a friend of Aristide’s, with whom he teaches a group of young boys how to read.
