Pierre Raymond Dumas Pays Tribute to Edmond Paul in a Foundational Book

The Haitian writer and politician is set to publish a work of over 600 pages aiming to rehabilitate the memory of a major 19th-century thinker. A work of over 40 years of diligent research.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Sunday, November 30, 2025 — In an editorial gesture that crowns four decades of research and reflection, Pierre Raymond Dumas, the eminent Haitian writer and politician, is set to publish a seminal work dedicated to Edmond Paul, a 19th-century intellectual and political figure whom he describes as “a Haitian mistreated in history, in political thought.”

A Long-Term Project

In an exclusive interview with “Café Philo” on Saturday, November 29, 2025, the author of “A Police in Turmoil” and “End of Militarism Haiti” revealed the details of this exceptional project. “It’s a book I started writing at the same time as the book I wrote about Frédéric Marcellin, but for personal and ideological reasons, I let the book sleep (delayed publication), a book that took me 40 years to write,” confided Pierre Raymond Dumas.

The work, which already spans 600 pages according to him, represents the fruit of arduous labor. “I took years to lay the foundations of the book,” he emphasized, referring to the difficulties encountered in establishing the groundwork for this ambitious project.

Popularizing Edmond Paul’s Thought

Pierre Raymond Dumas’s objective is clear: “I am writing this book with a fixed idea, which is to allow Haitian and foreign readers to know Edmond Paul, to discover Edmond Paul.” The author specifies that his approach is “without the pretension of writing a doctoral book but rather a promotional one with the aim of popularizing Edmond Paul’s thoughts.”

This desire to make Edmond Paul’s thought accessible responds to an observation: that of an unjustly neglected intellectual legacy. Born in Port-au-Prince on October 8, 1837, Alexis Frédéric Edmond Paul was nonetheless a fundamental thinker of the young Haitian nation.

A Prestigious Family and Intellectual Legacy

Dumas’s work traces the exceptional journey of this man from a privileged background. Son of Jean Paul, the first mayor of Port-au-Prince who “almost became president of Haiti instead of Soulouque,” Edmond Paul grew up “in an affluent family” and studied in France with Michel Chevalier as a classmate.

Returning to the country in 1860, he quickly began to influence public debate. His first major work, “Politico-Economic Questions,” outlined his vision for reforming the Haitian educational system, which he considered essential for economic growth and social cohesion.

A Thinker with Modern Ideas

Edmond Paul proved to be an avant-garde thinker, described by Pierre Raymond Dumas as “a proponent of parliamentary liberalism” and also “a proponent of protectionism.” As early as 1861, he initiated the first major Haitian economic debate, which remains in the annals, opposing free-trade advocate A. Monfleury.