Close studies of récits d'enfance by authors from Martinique and Guadeloupe have identified similar sites of literary tension: the French–Creole diglossia, the ethnoclass hierarchy with its interrelated socio–economic stratifications, and the negotiation of the colonial past and slave history. Two récits d'enfance by Haitian author Dany Laferrière, L'Odeur du café (1991) and its sequel, Le Charme des apres–midi sans fin (1997), display pronounced differences in their approach to childhood. The integration of a Haitian writer into this study requires rigorous contextual analysis, and this chapter will outline important stages in Haitian history as well as considering Laferrière's position as a diasporic author based in Quebec, before discussing the interplay between memory, history and childhood in his récits d'enfance.

To the reader familiar with Graham Greene's violent account of Haiti in The Comedians, set in Port–au–Prince at a time contemporaneous with Laferrière's childhood recollections (which take place in 1963–64), Laferrière's récits d'enfance may come as a surprise. The narratives present him as a happy and contented child, growing up in the town of Petit–Goâve under the guidance of his loving grandmother, Da. This chapter's title alludes to Laferrière's refusal to base his childhood memoirs on the danger, poverty, violence and political upheaval which have become synonymous with Haiti, a situation that has recently been tragically exacerbated by the devastating earthquake of 12 January 2010.

In Chapter 1 the relative lack of récits d'enfance and autobiographical literature from Haiti was noted. Laferrière is the first modern Haitian author to turn to this genre, and it is significant that other Haitian authors now based outside Haiti have also written textual accounts which are closely concerned with childhood. Another Haitian émigré to Canada, Emile Ollivier, published a récit d'enfance entitled Mille Eaux (1999) shortly before his death in 2002. Ollivier's dark, reflective text, published with Gallimard's influential ‘Haute enfance’ series, explores his traumatic relationship with his mother and the difficult material conditions which led to his truncated childhood: ‘J'ai connu ce genre de souffrance réservée aux adultes et j'ai dû les [sic] affronter sur le même plan qu'eux’. A third Haitian–Quebecois author to draw on childhood is Marie–Célie Agnant.