Jòj Kastra

Born in Port-au-Prince in 1936, Jòj Kastra is one of the leading poets of Haiti. After living many years in exile, he returned to his native land after the fall of Baby Doc Duvalier’s regime. He has been publishing books of poems in both Haitian and French since 1965. In his exile, while living in New York, he was known as a brilliant theoretician who wrote incendiary tracts in the Haitian language calling for the overthrow of the hated Duvalier dictatorship. His poems were a key incentive for the late poet Paul Laraque to create Curbstone Press’s major anthology of Haitian poetry, Open Gate. Kastra’s Wisdom Teeth was published bilingually in 2007.