In Dany Laferrière’s The World is Moving around Me, his memoir of his experiences during the Haiti earthquake of 2010, Laferrière refers to his “black notebook” a number of times.  This is a small book, bound in black, which he always carries.  Laferrière states that it enables him to “write down everything that crosses… [his] field of vision or… [his] mind” (Laferrière 15).  As a writer, Laferrière has adopted the habit of carrying this notebook, perhaps as a means of circumventing the necessity of having to rely on memory alone.  His notebook enables him the ability to record immediate impressions and responses in any given situation.

Because of the modern connotations of the “little black book” as a record of past or potential amorous contacts I decided to do some research on the history of the term.  On the website World Wide Words, an entry on October 15 of 2005, in response to a question about “the little black book,” cite author Michael Quinion, British etymologist and writer provides the following information:

“There were several literal black books in English history, such as the Black Book of the Exchequer of about 1175, which recorded the royal revenues, and the Black Book of the Admiralty, a code of rules for the government of the navy, possibly from the fourteenth century. The most famous one recorded monastic abuses uncovered by official visitors and provided the evidence for the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s by Henry VIII. Generally, black book was used for any official book bound in black. It was also used for the Bible, commonly so bound.”

Laferrière’s black notebook could represent a combination of all of these references.  It is a record of Laferrière’s “truth”, truth which could be associated with the black-bound bible and the swearing in of a witness at a trail.   It could also be considered a record of abuses, like the monastic abuses above, that the earthquake inflicted on the Haitian people.  Laferrière is compelled to record the events as they unfold, a record of his first impressions and responses to the earthquake’s aftermath.   Laferrière  refers to the earthquake as “a new god… [that] already has a name in popular culture: “‘Goudougoudou,’ the sound the earth made when it trembled” (153).    In its personification, the earthquake has become responsible for the abuses and deaths that it has inflicted.  Here the black notebook becomes like the Exchequer record of royal revenues: Laferrière’s “black book” records the “tally” of losses.

Laferrière’s black book contains the record of his “official” report of his experiences in and after the Haitian earthquake.  His commitment to record the events as they unfold is his natural response in his writing practice, a self-imposed “rule” of writing.  In his book Laferrière states: “I understand now that a minute can hold the entire life of a city” it is clear that this rule has great merit in light of the recording the events of the Haitian earthquake that created his memoir The World is Moving around Me. (62).  Laferrière’s awareness of the importance or recording events as they unfold or impact him in the moment allow him to capture “minutes” that may have otherwise have been lost or forgotten.

Works Cited:

Laferrière, Dany. The World is Moving around Me. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013. Print.