Hilarius Hilarion, a young unfortunate Negro from Port-au-Prince, steals to eat. The police catch him and beat him up. He ends up in prison, where he meets a communist activist who tells him that the American masters deprive Negroes of all the good things of the earth. When he gets out of prison, Hilarion is a communist. He marries Claire-Heureuse, whom he met on the beach, and who gives him a child. Hilarion finally knows joy. Not for long, alas! Fascist assassins kill him. He dies in broad daylight.

This novel by Jacques Alexis, who is Haitian, is deeply marked by the style of the "tale shooters" and extends the art of the "sambas", the Indian troubadours of Haiti. Alexis, the author of this novel illuminated by the joy of living, died like his hero Hilarion. He too was assassinated.