…[an] energetic and unusual novel…Léger, born in Haiti and educated in America, deftly sketches his country's postcolonial struggles as well as its faith, resilience and promise. Although his characters remain a little untangible, his Haiti-in-crisis, richly seen and unforgettable, is all too real.
The New York Times Book Review - Regina Marler
So powerful as to be mesmerizing. I don’t think I’ve seen the Haitian earthquake of 2010 represented with such compassion and insight. One of those books that leave you wishing the author could produce a tome every month.” — Gary Shteyngart
“A fully mature novel in scope and perspective, as rich in ideas as in humanity. Funny, street-smart, and keenly observed, God Loves Haiti establishes Léger as one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive and irresistible new voices.” — Edwidge Danticat
“The Port-au-Prince earthquake of 2010 may seem like an odd setting for a romantic comedy, but then Haiti really is an amazing place! Dimitry Elias Léger has brought it off, with a smile, a tear, and a peppery dash of satire as a lagniappe.” — Madison Smartt Bell
“A luminous debut . . . Léger writes beautifully and with an immense humanity. . . . He renders [Haiti] in all of its stupendous beautiful tortured complexity. A stand-out novel.” — Junot Diaz
“A work of fiction that combines breathless narrative movement with memorable writing and unabashed Big Ideas. [An] impressive debut novel.” — Andrea Lee
“The heat, the horror, the taste of ashes: Reading this vivid debut novel about the Port-au-Prince earthquake of 2010-and the risky love triangle that survives it-is jolting and exhilarating.” — More magazine
“With empathy and wit, Léger captures the intricacies of a country that is at once beautiful and tortured….There is no doubt that God Loves Haiti will leave readers wanting more from this talented author.” — M&V Magazine
[God Loves Haiti ] shows undeniable strength and a powerful message about creating something new out of such devastation. — Publishers Weekly
“[Léger ]deftly sketches his country’s postcolonial struggles as well as its faith, resilience and promise….his Haiti-in-crisis, richly seen and unforgettable, is all too real.” — New York Times Book Review
“Léger’s use of imagery when describing the aftermath of the earthquake is remarkable and unparalleled; it offers a refreshing perspective. God Loves Haiti is a detailed and gripping account of the tragic events that occurred, infused with a story of romance, courage and change.” — AfroPunk
So powerful as to be mesmerizing. I don’t think I’ve seen the Haitian earthquake of 2010 represented with such compassion and insight. One of those books that leave you wishing the author could produce a tome every month.
With empathy and wit, Léger captures the intricacies of a country that is at once beautiful and tortured….There is no doubt that God Loves Haiti will leave readers wanting more from this talented author.
Léger’s use of imagery when describing the aftermath of the earthquake is remarkable and unparalleled; it offers a refreshing perspective. God Loves Haiti is a detailed and gripping account of the tragic events that occurred, infused with a story of romance, courage and change.
A fully mature novel in scope and perspective, as rich in ideas as in humanity. Funny, street-smart, and keenly observed, God Loves Haiti establishes Léger as one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive and irresistible new voices.
The heat, the horror, the taste of ashes: Reading this vivid debut novel about the Port-au-Prince earthquake of 2010-and the risky love triangle that survives it-is jolting and exhilarating.
A luminous debut . . . Léger writes beautifully and with an immense humanity. . . . He renders [Haiti] in all of its stupendous beautiful tortured complexity. A stand-out novel.
[Léger ]deftly sketches his country’s postcolonial struggles as well as its faith, resilience and promise….his Haiti-in-crisis, richly seen and unforgettable, is all too real.
New York Times Book Review
A work of fiction that combines breathless narrative movement with memorable writing and unabashed Big Ideas. [An] impressive debut novel.
The Port-au-Prince earthquake of 2010 may seem like an odd setting for a romantic comedy, but then Haiti really is an amazing place! Dimitry Elias Léger has brought it off, with a smile, a tear, and a peppery dash of satire as a lagniappe.
★ 2015-01-08 Can an unimaginable catastrophe bring forth a triumph of the imagination? It can and, in the case of Haiti's 2010 earthquake, has with this bright, brilliant novel. Journalist Léger's first novel is, all at once, a bittersweet romantic comedy of errors, a vivid evocation of a calamity's aftereffects and a valentine to his home nation of Haiti. The calamity in question is the 2010 earthquake that ravaged the island in a manner of seconds. In the midst of the devastation, three intersecting lives arrive at a reckoning: the country's president, who has inherited a terrible legacy from decades of tyranny and corruption; his wife, Natasha Robert, a beautiful artist who, just before the quake struck, was in a sexual clinch in the presidential palace with her former lover Alain Destinè, the dreamer/entrepreneur she dumped for the chief executive. For a while after the quake, none of the three sides of this romantic triangle is certain the others have survived, yet they carry on with their lives on and off the island. The president is shown heading north to the U.N. in search of support, moral and otherwise. He finds it from his American counterpart in a hilarious exchange that, even if it didn't happen, should have. Alain, meanwhile, finds himself dragging a broken foot through the debris while finding other survivors and dodging thugs ordered by the president to kill him for coveting his wife. (He's saved from a beating by an American movie star who's helping with the recovery.) As for Natasha, she wanders the battered landscape of bodies and rubble in a daze, her personal regrets overpowered by the grace and perseverance she finds in her people, whose country's history was fraught with despair, death and injustice even before it was changed forever by what Haitians call the "goudou-goudou" (a euphemism approximating the sounds made by the earthquake). With shimmering, lyrical prose, Léger conjures an incisive vision of Haiti's complex heritage, tortured soul and dauntless spirit.