Mark Andrews, Emeritus Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies, wrote the introduction, and with Professor Lizabeth Paravisini, Professor of Hispanic Studies on the Randolph Distinguished Professor Chair, co-translated the poems in their anthology, Looting Hummingbirds: Selected Poems of Daniel Thaly, Poet of Dominica, published by Papillote Press.

“In the first quarter of the 20th century, Daniel Thaly (1879–1950) of Dominica, then a British Caribbean colony, was one of France’s most celebrated poets. He was educated in Martinique and then at medical school in France before returning to Dominica. His illustrious reputation crumbled when the emerging anti-colonial Negritude movement criticised his work. From then on he wrote little poetry. Here for the first time in English (and French) we can read a selection of his passionate and nostalgic verse—much about Dominica’s landscape—alongside an introduction that pieces together what little is known of his life.” Papillote Press

“O blue Dominica, island of sweet-flowing rivers,
Garden of a thousand flowers, orchard of a thousand fruits,
The phosphorescent sea illuminates your nights,
And sulphur vents smoke under your old volcanoes.”
(Thaly, Daniel, “To My Country,” The Garden of the Tropics, 1911)