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Dany Laferriere Le cri des oiseaux fous Outremont, Quebec. Lanctot. 2000 318 pages. Can$19.95 ISBN 2-89485-116-2
LE CRI DES OISEAUX FOus, Dany Laferriere's tenth novel, is the final work in what he calls his "American autobiography," which began in 1985 with Comment faire l'amour avec un negre sans se fatiguer. This most recent text constitutes a key work in the autobiography, since it recounts the last day and night Laferriere spent in Port-au-Prince before going into exile in Quebec in 1976 in order to escape the Duvalier regime, his decision to leave prompted by the assassination of his close friend Raymond Gasner. A meandering, loosely structured novel, Le cri des oiseaux fous takes the reader on an increasingly nightmarish journey through Port-au-Prince, and the intensity of the narrator's final hours in the city is...