Professor Marlene L. Daut, has been awarded the 2025 Haitian Studies Association Book Prize for her monumental work, The First and Last King of Haiti.
The HSA award committee describes The First and Last King of Haiti as “a landmark achievement in Haitian historiography and biography.” Drawing on an extraordinary range of French, English, U.S., and Haitian archival sources, Professor Daut offers a deeply researched and beautifully written portrait of Henry Christophe and the revolutionary world that shaped him. Reviewers praised the book’s remarkable synthesis of historical detail and analytical depth. And as the award committee notes, Professor Daut’s lyrical prose “moves with clarity and energy.”
What a testament to rigorous scholarship, narrative power, and historical imagination.