Mimi Barthélémy, who carried the Haitian kont to the world’s stages, dies in Paris

She was born Michèle Armand in Port-au-Prince on 3 May 1939 and died in Paris on 27 April 2013, aged seventy-three. Storyteller, actress, director and writer, she made her life’s work out of the Haitian oral tradition, the kont and the ruses of Bouki and Malis, and told them on stages in France, Africa and the Caribbean. She wrote and staged more than a dozen pieces and recorded the tales for children who would otherwise never hear them.