SOURCE: “A Land of Infinite Impossibilities,” in Spectator, Vol. 268, No. 8544, April 11, 1992, p. 31.

In the following review, Daniels discusses the allure of Haiti as portrayed in The Best Nightmare on Earth and Ian Thomson's Bonjour Blanc.

Haiti is a writer's El Dorado. Though small in size and population, its mines of misery and joy are inexhaustible; it is a sovereign comedy for writer's block. No matter how many times its history is recounted, it never stales; voodoo can be relied upon to impart a frisson of supernatural danger even to members of the British Humanist Association; and Haiti's brutal, absurd politics, in which winner takes all (especially the life of opponents), is rather more compelling than squabbles over future rates of income tax. One could write a book about a day in Haiti.

The fascination that this country, the less-than-perfect Pearl of the Antilles, exerts over all who encounter...