The Dark Lure of Haiti - Andrew Crofts
Poor, tiny, battered Haiti is in the global headlines once more – this time courtesy of a scandal involving aid workers and prostitutes. I have to confess that there have been many times where I have accepted an invitation to a destination simply because I have read and loved a book about the place, (“The World of Suzie Wong” for Hong Kong, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” for New York, “Death in Venice” for Venice, “Myra Breckinridge” for Hollywood, “Don’t Stop the Carnival” for the Caribbean islands generally, “The Great Railway Bazaar” for the art of travel itself, and so forth). I must have read Graham Greene’s “The Comedians” pretty soon after it was published in 1966, when I would still have been in my teens, (I had probably seen the film too, which was produced as a vehicle for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton the following year). Greene had already caught my attention with both his stories and his own life, taking my imagination to some of the darkest and mo...