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Jan J. Dominique. Memoir of an Amnesiac. Irline François, tr. Edwidge Danticat, foreword. Coconut Creek, Florida. Caribbean Studies. 2008. 305 pages. $19.50. isbn 978-1-58432-473-7
Jan J. Dominique's first published literary text is an intimate memoir. The main protagonist is a child/ woman with a dual name, Lili, who is also Paul. Memoir of an Amnesiac is the nonlinear account of a Haitianborn girl who lived and became a woman in Montréal, where Dominique lived from 1970 to 1979. The novel's historical context is generally unspecified in order to better represent the consciousness of its young protagonist. Although there are letters, incompletely dated (e.g., 197- in part 2), there is an attempt to dehistoricize the text by foregrounding the subjective realm of memory.
Since Jean Dominique, Jan's father,...