Available in English for the first time, Marie Vieux-Chauvet's stunning trilogy of novellas is a remarkable literary event. In a brilliant translation by Rose-Myriam Rejouis and Val Vinokur, Love, Anger, Madness is a scathing response to the struggles of race, class, and sex that have ruled Haiti. Suppressed upon its initial publication in 1968, this major work became an underground classic and was finally released in an authorized edition in France in 2005.

In Love, Anger, Madness, Marie Vieux-Chauvet offers three slices of life under an oppressive regime. Gradually...