Marlene Daut
We’re thrilled to start promoting and publicizing The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christoph by author and professor Marlene L. Daut, forthcoming from Knopf and Yale University Press, UK division.
Marlene L. Daut is an author, scholar, editor, and professor. Her books include Tropics of Haiti: Race and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Liverpool UP, 2015); Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (Palgrave, 2017); Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution (UNC Press, 2023); and The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe (Knopf, 2025).
Her articles on Haitian history and culture have appeared in over a dozen magazines, newspapers, and journals including, The New Yorker (“What’s the Path Forward for Haiti?”), The New York Times (“Napoleon Isn’t a Hero to Celebrate”), Harper’s Bazaar (“Resurecting a Lost Palace of Haiti”), Essence (“Haiti isn’t Cursed. It is Exploited”), The Nation (“What the French Really Owe Haiti”), and the LA Review of Books (“Why did Bridgerton Erase Haiti?”). She has won several awards, grants, and fellowships for her contributions to historical and cultural understandings of the Caribbean, notably from the Ford Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Haitian Studies Association, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Most recently, she won a grant from the Robert Silvers Foundation for The First and Last King of Haiti.
She graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a B.A. in English and French in 2002 and went on to teach in Rouen, France as an Assistante d’Anglais before enrolling at the University of Notre Dame, where she earned a Ph.D. in English in 2009. Since graduating, she has taught Haitian and French colonial history and culture at the University of Miami, the Claremont Graduate University, and the University of Virginia, where she also became series editor of New World Studies at UVA Press. In July 2022, she was appointed as Professor of French and African American Studies at Yale University.
Marlene lives in the New Haven, CT area with her spouse and children.
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe
Slave. Revolutionary. King. Henry Christophe was, in his time, popular and famous the world over. Born to an enslaved mother on the island of Grenada, he first fought to overthrow the British during the American Revolution, before helping his fellow enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue, as Haiti was then called, to gain their freedom from France. Yet in an incredible twist of fate, Christophe ended up fighting with Napoléon Bonaparte’s forces against the very enslaved men and women he had once fought alongside. Eventually reuniting with those he had previously abandoned, he helped lead Haiti’s war of independence to victory before shocking the world by announcing he was king. It all came to a sudden and tragic end when King Henry shot himself in the heart, some said with a silver bullet. Complex and full of the kind of drama that only a true story can deliver, the tale of Christophe’s rise and fall is the stuff of legends.
Once one of the most well-known figures in the world, the Haitian king remains perennially misunderstood by historians and storytellers alike. Drawing from a trove of previously overlooked sources to paint a captivating history of his life and the awe-inspiring kingdom he built, Marlene L. Daut offers a fresh perspective on a figure long overshadowed by caricature and cliché. Peeling back the layers of myth and misconception reveals a man driven by both noble ideals and profound flaws, as unforgettable as he is enigmatic. More than just a biography, The First and Last King of Haiti is a masterful exploration of power, ambition, and the human spirit. From his pivotal role in the Haitian Revolution to his coronation as king and eventual demise, this book is testament to the enduring allure of those who dare to defy the odds and shape the course of nations.
Stay tuned for updates!
