"René Philoctète's unpublished novel presents a Port-au-Prince after the dictatorship and Aristide's rise to power: the Port-au-Prince of the poor, the cripples, the blind who live on the forecourt of churches; the Port-au-Prince of La Saline and the children who love each other behind the piles of rubbish; the Port-au-Prince held by the General's men and that of the rise of the priest and future president. If Jacques Roumain depicts the poverty of Fonds-Rouge, it is that of the big cities that Philoctète attacks, the poverty "which defiles, shrinks, stupefies". A daring novel that has succeeded in its bet to show admirable human feelings in beings that society does not associate with what is beautiful and great.

A skillful blend of voices in a poetic, ironic, serious and tender language at times. Philoctetes has been able to recreate with courage and honesty the world of the poor and small merchants. He takes the reader by the hand and leads him to meet these women, men, children, who live and die in the street, under the arcades, on the forecourt of churches. Hard, poignant and tender images, very far from the inanimate and anonymous clichés offered to us by associations or organizations that tackle the problem of street children. A novel thrilling with life, bubbling with lives to discover. Once again, the poet, novelist of the great human harvest, has things to tell us.