In January 2010, Haiti experienced a seven-point earthquake that laid waste to an already-struggling infrastructure. The world, for a few moments, paused and sighed a collective, compassionate sigh towards one of the oldest republics in the Western Hemisphere.

Paul Farmer, known for starting Partners in Health and for being deputy ambassador to Haiti from the UN under Bill Clinton, composed this book about his experiences soon after the earthquake. Paul has spent over 30 years serving this island-nation, and he knows it like few outsiders do. He shares these memories in an attempt to provide a chronological diary for the sufferings of this people and to publicize the weight of their journey.

At the conclusion of the book lies several stories from individual Haitians. It is nice to hear their patriotism intermixed with their empathetic sufferings of their fellow citizens. Clinton always raved about how resilient the Haitian people are. They will bounce back. This story - these journeys - tell exactly how this bounce-back will occur. For those interested in being more globally minded, this book is worth a read.
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I received this book as an audiobook through the Early Reviewers Program. I don't usually listen to audiobooks, but this particular book lent itself well to the format because I just felt like I was listening to a lengthy NPR piece. It begins with Paul Farmer's account of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. He describes the devastation to both physical structures, such as the hospital, and public systems, mainly due to loss of life. He also details efforts to assist the Haitians in the direct aftermath and in the months following the earthquake. One of the most interesting sections deals with a cholera outbreak that occurred several months after the initial disaster. This led to a debate in the international community over whether cholera vaccine administration would be effective or worthwhile. Farmer's assessment of the disaster as an "acute on chronic" situation serves as a warning that the scale of this disaster was not inevitable. Haiti already existed in a chronic disaster state in which public infrastructure could not sufficiently serve the majority of its people. The book continues with a variety of first-hand accounts from Haitians and foreign aid workers. These all lend different perspectives to the disaster and recovery. The overarching theme is that the international community must help Haiti to "build back better" and that this is probably best accomplished by direct assistance to Haiti's government for specific items such as teacher's salaries. The old Haiti, an underdeveloped country with a hodgepodge of uncoordinated NGOs running many of the social services, was clearly a disaster waiting to happen. ( )

Haiti After the Earthquake was an interesting listen (I was given the audiobook version). It's a very in depth look at Haiti and what happened before and after the earthquake of 2010. Most interesting to me was a peek inside Haiti's political structure and how that affected the people of Haiti during the aftermath of this great disaster. The author also brings in a number of familiar faces and "big names" to try and bring awareness to the problem. It's a great marketing technique - who doesn't love Meryl Streep? - but it also is a bit deceptive as she does not read the majority of this book.

Still, with a bit of restructuring, this book has a lot of potential. All the information is there, it just needs a bit of rearranging and pairing down. (The book is a little overly long in some places.)

Side note: Kudos to the distributors of this book. I received my copy pretty much as soon as I won it from LT's Early Reviewers Program.

Paul Farmer is very dedicated to his role as Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti and Partners in Health and it shows. Unfortunately, it feels like this book was a little rushed and more like a personal diary than I would have liked. The first 2/3 of the book were written by Farmer where he goes through descriptions of many meetings and throws out a lot of names. There were interesting chapters discussing Haiti's history and politics mixed into the details about the earthquake and some of the aftermath. The better part of the book was at the end with essays from Haitians and other people involved. I would like to hear from more of those people. It is an interesting book but gets bogged down in too many unnecessary details.

One other minor complaint: the cover of the audiobook says that Meryl Streep reads the book. She reads a few of the essays at the end but not the majority of the book (the portion written by Paul Farmer). ( )

Haiti After The Earthquake is filled with information about the problems that have plagued Haiti’s infrastructure for years, and how that plays out tragically after the earthquake. While I do feel like I learned a lot about Haiti’s history, and also got a good sense of the horrific atmosphere in Port-Au-Prince after the earthquake, I only made it through five hours of this fourteen-hour audiobook before I gave up.

For someone who is interested in foreign policy and the infrastructure of Haiti’s government and the lack of services for their citizens, there is a lot of information here, it’s just not arranged in a manner that held my attention. I feel bad giving this book a low rating because I think that the information itself is so important, but this was just a depressing subject that dragged on and on. I began to dread listening to this book, in part because it seemed to be repetitive, at least until it got into the history of Haiti, which was the part that held my attention because it had a solid framework and direction – a beginning, middle and end. With the rest of the book (the parts that I listened to) it was hard to tell which direction the book was going to go. I really did want to see if there was improvement for the people of Haiti, but I just couldn’t force myself to listen to another nine hours.

Also, the audiobook says that it’s narrated by Meryl Streep, which is very misleading. Most of the book is narrated by a man who has a nice deep voice that is pleasant to listen too, but the billing on the front of the audiobook should reflect that. (I have read elsewhere that Meryl Streep reads an essay near the end of the book.)

If you have an overwhelming interest in Haiti then you might want to listen to this audiobook. The narrator was pleasant to listen to, but the organization of the material left a lot to be desired. ( )