About the Author, Reynold Ducasse
Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Reynold Ducasse regularly visited or vacationed in the small town of Petite Rivière de l’Artibonite where his family’s ancestral home once stood as a hub for their agricultural business operations that extended to several surrounding communities, in particular Dessalines, Saint Marc, Pont Sondé, Estère, Desdunes, Ennery, and Verrêtes. This dual exposure provided him with firsthand knowledge about life in both the rural and the urban population, including in-depth familiarity with the communal work organization known as kombit, which was then commonplace in the entire region.
In those turbulent days of the 1950s and 60s, hair-raising zombie stories circulated widely around, and sure enough, they affected young minds and left their mark on the most sensitive and impressionable ones. Hence, when at the age of twenty-five, as a young physician, Dr. Ducasse left Haiti to pursue studies and training abroad, he was still under the psychological effects of these recurring stories, which most Haitians believe to be true even as they mature into adulthood. That, plus a culture of intolerance and impunity that made it possible for a group of crude, undisciplined men, known as Tonton Macoutes, to drag innocent people to jail, torture them, and execute them on the mere accusation or suspicion that they might be against the government, convinced him that Haiti was not a place to live, and that once out he should never return. The psychological stress from the perceived zombie threat, albeit irrational, and the general sense of insecurity that prevailed in those days, were indeed overwhelming.
The Haitian Zombie Secret is part of an effort to set the record straight, in the hope that future generations of Haitians might be spared the emotional trauma as well as the systemic dysfunction that the belief in zombies and the attendant zombie culture wreak on Haitian society as a whole.
Dr. Ducasse trained in Germany and Canada before coming to the United States where he received his board certification in cardiovascular disease. He was subsequently appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University Of Illinois School Of Medicine, Chicago campus. Over the years, Dr. Ducasse has been active in the Haitian community in Chicago as a member of the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad and the DuSable Heritage Association. He is currently President of AMHE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad.
