Masters of the Dew
SynopsisPlot
One man, and one man alone, demonstrated to us the strength of his character when he fought to mend the familial ties that had been severed in his community of Fonds Rouge, Haiti due to a major misunderstanding that resulted in the death of two important community leaders. Shortly after, the inhabitants of Fonds Rouge were forced to live under drought conditions after they had cut down all the trees they possessed in order to use them to burn for heat/warmth. As a result, the natural water source that nourished the land before stopped suddenly and left the land barren and empty of the possibility of bringing life back into the area.
Story
About this book
Masters of the Dew follows Manuel, a young Haitian man who returns to his village of Fonds Rouge after years of cutting sugar cane in Cuba. He finds a settlement divided by a feud that began with a misunderstanding and ended in the deaths of two community leaders. Trees have been cut for fuel, the water source has failed, and the fields lie barren.
Jacques Roumain wrote the novel in French as Gouverneurs de la rosee, and it appeared in 1944, the year of his death. Langston Hughes and Mercer Cook prepared the English translation. Roumain worked as an ethnologist and was active in Haitian politics, and the book reflects close attention to rural speech, farming work, and the shared labour that keeps a village fed.
Manuel's search for a new spring runs alongside the harder task of speaking with neighbours who avoid one another. Roumain keeps the two problems tied together, since water can only reach the fields through many hands. The setting is a dry stretch of rural Haiti where lost tree cover has changed how rain and groundwater behave, making cooperation a practical condition for planting again.
