Since the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier's dictatorship in 1986, Haiti has endured an unending transition to democracy punctuated by military coups, failed elections, natural disasters, and foreign interventions. In spite of these adversities, compounded by growing social polarization, and multiple forms of insecurity, Haitians have managed to carry on; they have mastered the arts of surviving natural and man-made catastrophes. The two books under review seek to explain on the one hand how

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... s describe in their own words experiencing such hard times, and on the other why foreign intrusions in the form of U.N. peacekeeping forces failed in their mission to bring stability and democracy to the country. Lavil: Life, Love, and Death in Port-au-Prince and UN Peace Operations: Lessons From Haiti, 1994-2016 provide very different perspectives on Haiti's contemporary realities. Lavil is part of Verso's Voice of Witness book series, which seeks to offer personal narratives that are "accessible, thought-provoking, and ultimately humanizing perspectives on what can often seem like impenetrable