(2021) What Storm, What Thunder (HarperCollins Canada & Tin House Press)

Now available in paperback in the US from Tin House press:

My novel, What Storm, What Thunder,  on the 2010 earthquake in Haiti is out now in the USA: from Tin House and in Canada: from HarperCollins. The exclusive cover of the hardcover (below) reveal appeared in Poets&Writers on April 3, 2021! So exciting!! The new US softcover edition will be out August 23, 2022! (See the paperback edition cover on my home page!) It is similarly beautiful!

“Extraordinary….lyrical….dazzling….Each of the voices entrances, thanks to Chancy’s beautiful prose and rich themes. This is not to be missed.” – Publishers’ Weekly, Starred Review *

“Unforgettable….a devastating, personal, and vital account.” – Kirkus, Starred Review *

“A soaring, heartbreaking symphony.” – Library Journal, Starred Review *

Novel Synopsis:

At the end of a long, sweltering day, on January 12, 2010, as markets
and businesses attempt to close for the day, an earthquake of 7.0
magnitude, shook the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, leaving over
250,000 dead, over 1.3 million injured and another 1.5 million
homeless.  The earthquake itself lasted for only 45 seconds, but
nothing would be the same again for anyone on the ground, for any
Haitian watching monuments fall to the ground from afar, on television
screens, for anyone with a personal tie to its land.

What Storm, What Thunder tells the story of the earthquake from 10 distinct voices, of
those who lived through the “before” and “after” of the earthquake
from the mother who will never see her children again or her husband,
the accountant, who cannot compute how he has lost everything in forty
five seconds, to the child whose soccer dreams are shattered the
moment his leg is amputated, to the errant daughter of a
water-bottling magnate who himself returns to Haiti just days before
the disaster with a plan to conquer the local market. This is a story
of lives entwining and splitting at crucial moments in which all could
be gained or lost against a backdrop of a city teeming with despair
and locked in a history of repressed hopes and dreams.  It is a story
that calls us to remember, whether we are Haitian or not, and to
rethink disaster not only as the story of a nation but as the story of
human beings who might, one day, also be ourselves.

For an excerpt from What Storm, What Thunder, please follow the following link below to Il Tolomeo, the comparative literature journal of the University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Italy:

HTTP://DOI.ORG/10.14277/2499-5975/TOL-17-15-3

Another excerpt from the novel appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 56, in 2015; for a reflection, 5 years after the earthquake, published by the Massachusetts Review on their blog, please go to: https://www.massreview.org/node/396

For a short podcast interview on the novel conducted by Nigerian/South African filmmaker, Akin Omotoso, go to:

https://www.spreaker.com/user/akinesthetic/akin-interviews-award-winning-author-myr

For more interviews and pieces related to WS, WT, please go to: http://linktr.ee/myriam2021