“Daut’s work is a definitive account of Christophe’s life, offering readers a nuanced understanding of a figure often obscured by myth.” — Politics and Rights Review

Marlene L. Daut applied the “Page 99 Test” to The First and Last King of Haiti.

“The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” featured on Book Bub.

“The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” featured on Ms. Magazine.

“The First and Last King Of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” featured on NY Mag - The Strategist

The First and Last King of Haiti featured on The Globe and Mail.

“This revelatory work restores a lost figure to the pantheon of pivotal world leaders.” - Peggy Kurkowski

“The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” featured on Scroll.in.

“…an overview of the entire revolutionary period. It’s a magnificent, sweeping work of history.” —Dana Snitzky, history and current affairs reviews editor

“The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” by Marlene L. Daut featured on What Is That Book About

“A tour de force. Daut brings King Henry Christophe vividly back to life in this deeply researched and rivetingly told biography. In a work overflowing with new archival discoveries and insights, she carries us expertly through a moment of revolutionary political thought and cultural transformation that reshaped our world and its possibilities. Everyone should know this history.”
–Laurent DuBois

“In The First and Last King of Haiti, Marlene Daut, a Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University, provides a full-scale biography of Christophe, set in the context of immensely consequential decades in Haiti’s history.” — Glenn C. Altschuler, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“In The First and Last King of Haiti, Yale scholar Marlene L. Daut explores the life of Henry Christophe, a complex figure in Haitian history. Born to an enslaved mother in Grenada, Christophe would go on to be a key leader in Haiti’s revolution for independence. Eventually, he would go on to declare himself King of Haiti, only to die by his own hand nine years later.” — Kendra Winchester, Book Riot

“The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” by Marlene L. Daut featured on Bookstr

“Daut's deeply researched and nuanced portrayal is exactly the kind of underlying IP that a good screenwriter needs to craft a compelling script. It’s also a dream part for an actor.” — Andy Lewis

Many details of Christophe’s life remain murky, but Daut’s research is outstanding. She has unearthed new sources in Caribbean and European archives, and she weighs all evidence carefully and reaches judicious conclusions. This book’s depth of detail may daunt general audiences, but it is a must-read for scholars.

Haitian historical portrayals of the Revolution, in contrast to often misleading fictional representations, reveal the profound contributions of Haiti to anti-racism, human rights, and anti-colonial thought.

"As a narrative of the rise and fall of Henry Christophe, Daut’s First and Last King of Haiti... will likely stand as the definitive work for a long time to come." -- Madison Smartt Bell,  The American Scholar 

“By clearly chronicling Christophe's complexstory with detail and nuanced analysis, Daut portrays a crucial, if little-known leader and traces the deep roots of Haiti's ongoing struggles.”
—Booklist (starred review)

The essential biography of the controversial rebel, traitor, and only king of Haiti. Henry Christophe is one of the most richly complex figures in the history of the Americas, and was, in his time, popular and famous the world over: in The First and Last King of Haiti, a brilliant, award-winning Yale scholar unravels the still controversial enigma that he was.

“Marlene L. Daut’s The First and Last King of Haiti (Knopf) is an impressively researched biography of Henry Christophe, a former lieutenant of Toussaint Louverture’s who became one of the leaders of post-revolutionary Haiti.”

- SUDHIR HAZAREESINGH

Yale University Press London buys Marlene L. Daut’s 'riveting biography of Haiti’s first and only king'

Scholarly insights into a grandiose historical character who remains an enigma.

Marlene Daut offers an essential biography that explores the tumultuous life of one of the most controversial figures in the history of the Americas in “The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe.”

When asked by Elle magazine what currently sits on her her nightstand, Edwidge Danticat, author of a new collection called We’re Alone by Graywolf Press, responded: “The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe by Marlene L. Daut, a fascinating, in-depth, and meticulously researched biography of Haiti’s revolutionary-turned-king.”

Marlene Daut is a Professor of French and African American Studies at Yale University. 

Since graduating with her Ph.D. in 2009,  Marlene has written four books, including Tropics of Haiti: Race and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Liverpool UP, 2015); Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (Palgrave, 2017); Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution (UNC Press, 2023); and the forthcoming The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe (Knopf, 2025). Additionally, she has authored much public-facing work on Haitian history and culture and has appeared in over a dozen magazines, newspapers, and journals including, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Essence, The Nation, and the LA Review of Books. 

Daut (French and African diaspora studies, Yale Univ.) pens a monumental biography of Henry Christophe, the only king of Haiti. Born in 1767, Christophe was both globally famous and influential and changed the fates of nations in complex ways.

In the June 2024 issue of H-Diplo, Ronald Angelo Johnson reviews Awakening the Ashes:

“The author of Awakening the Ashes understood that the journey upon which the book attempts to take its readers would be intellectually taxing. She admits, “Asking nonspecialists who may be newly interested in the history of Haiti to consult nineteenth-century Haitian-produced sources is an inconvenient argument” (p. 27). Yet, that is exactly what Haitian literary scholar Marlene L. Daut asks of her readers in this sweeping, incisive volume on early Haitian literature.

“Envision your cities shrouded in mourning… envision the care you took upon yourself, night and day, to revive your companions, envision your children, your soldiers, the peaceful inhabitants of the countryside crippled by the French,” wrote Louis- Felix Boisrond-Tonnerre, an early 19th-century Haitian thinker and former secretary to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, as he urged Haitians’ to remember their shared experience of the 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution.