Jean D’Amérique – from No Way in the Skin Without This Bloody Embrace – translated by Conor Bracken


Jean D'Amerique tr Conor Bracken

Born in Haiti in 1994, Jean D’Amérique is a prize-winning poet, playwright, and novelist who splits his time between Paris, Brussels, and Port-au-Prince. He has published several collections of poetry: Petite fleur du ghetto (Atelier Jeudi Soir), Nul chemin dans la peau que saignante étreinte (Cheyne), Atelier du silence (Cheyne); and Rhapsodie rouge (Cheyne). Author of several plays, he has received the Prix Jean-Jacques Lerrant des Journées de Lyon des Auteurs de Théâtre for Cathédrale des cochons (éditions Théâtrales) and the 2021 Prix RFI Théâtre for Opéra poussière. His first novel, Soleil à coudre, is out now from Actes Sud. 

Conor Bracken is the author of Henry Kissinger, Mon Amour (Bull City Press) and The Enemy of My Enemy is Me (Diode Editions), as well as the translator of Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s Scorpionic Sun (CSU Poetry Center) and Jean D’Amérique’s No Way in the Skin Without This Bloody Embrace (Ugly Duckling Presse). You can find his work in places like BOMB, Gulf Coast, New England Review, The New Yorker, Sixth Finch, and West Branch, and you can find him near Cleveland, Ohio.