Poet Georges Castera dies in Petion-Ville

Georges Castera died in Petion-Ville on this day at 83. Born in Port-au-Prince on 27 December 1936, he spent years in exile in Spain and New York under the Duvaliers and came home in 1986. He wrote in Kreyol, French and Spanish, and he treated Kreyol as a language for hard, exact poetry rather than for charm. He helped found the Association des ecrivains haitiens and the Atelier Jeudi Soir, where younger writers read their work aloud. He kept writing after a stroke took much of his speech.