Laferrière enters the Académie with a sword bearing a vèvè

Dany Laferrière was formally installed under the dome at the Quai Conti on 28 May 2015, into the seat once Montesquieu’s. Two days earlier Jean d’Ormesson handed him his academician’s sword, forged by the Haitian sculptor Patrick Vilaire, with a vèvè worked into the guard and an ink-bubble at the tip of the blade. Laferrière said it was to Legba, who opens every barrier, that he entrusted his fate.