Mimerose Beaubron was born in Ouanaminthe, in northwest Haiti. A social and cultural anthropologist, she is also the co-founder and principal singer of the world music band, Boukmans Ekperyans. In 2002 she, along with the group, was nominated as a Peace and Goodwill ambassador by the United Nations.

Madison Smartt Bell is an American writer, known for his trilogy of novels about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, published 1995-2004. Finalist for the National Book Award and recipient of a PEN/Faulkner award, Bell was raised in Nashville and lived in New York and London before settling in Baltimore, Maryland.