AUBELIN JOLICOEUR, Journalist and Boulevardier 1924-2005

Aubelin Jolicoeur was the squeaky-voiced, cane-twirling gossip columnist, and rumoured political fixer who called himself 'Mr. Haiti.' Although diminutive and dapper, he was larger than life. He was his nation's most famous journalist and best-known character, a former government minister, poet, art-gallery owner, most ostentatious dandy, and an outrageous flirt.
In the second half of his life, he was proud to be known as the model for the shifty character Petit Pierre, in his friend Graham Greene's 1966 novel, The Comedians.
Such recognition served Jolicoeur's many purposes in life, which were to mix with people, gather grist for his newspaper column, confide political tips, trade favours, meet celebrities, and flirt with attractive women.
His heyday was in the 1950s and 1960s, when people flocked to Haiti for its exotica. He could name-drop without shame, and knew everybody who was anybody in Haiti, often greeting first-timers on the airport tarmac with "Bonjour, Cheri. Mister Haiti at your service." He wore white three-piece suits, high-topped boots, silk cravat and matching handkerchief, and carried a gold or silver-topped cane.
His assets were many: knowledge of literature, a plummy English accent, and a friendship with the Haitian dictator, Francois Duvalier, going back to their boyhoods in Jacmel. His mother tongue, as with almost all Haitians, was French-based Creole, but he mastered classical French, the language of most of the country's newspapers. His name could not have suited him, or his elaborate writing style, better. His columns, mainly in the daily Le Nouvelliste, had all the flourishes of the best 19th-century French writers.
During his journalistic career, his elaborate, often cryptic or allegorical style allowed him to survive during the dictatorships of the Duvaliers. It was doubtful whether either dictator, both uneducated, ever understood his veiled criticisms, although he was jailed twice under Papa Doc. On the other hand, the dictator once gave him a gleaming imported Chrysler, a sign of the journalist's ability to duck and weave.
For most of his life, his "stage" was the bar or terrace of the Grand Hotel Oloffson, in Port-au-Prince. Brandishing his cane, Mr. Jolicoeur would converse in brilliant French, English, or Spanish with visitors, especially female.
In 1986, just after Baby Doc had been forced to flee the country, Mr. Jolicoeur disappeared from the Oloffson, and it was thought he might have fled with the Duvaliers. But when the new three-man military junta emerged from the presidential palace, there he was, descending the steps with the three colonels, in his usual boulevardier attire. He had been given the title of deputy information minister, the man who would deal with the press' queries. Duck and weave.
He was born in Jacmel on April 30, 1924, to a French father and a Haitian mother. He moved to the capital at 19. "He went to Port-au-Prince with a suitcase and $20," said his niece, Ariel. "He wanted to put Haiti on the map."
It is rumoured that his mother gave birth to him at midnight in a cemetery that she was walking by when she went into labour. In typically dramatic fashion, he is now buried in that same cemetery.
Suffering in recent years from Parkinson's disease, Mr. Jolicoeur returned to his home town, where he died on Valentine's Day. "He would say that was because he was a man of love," said Richard Morse, owner of the Grand Hotel Oloffson.

Sources: The New York Times, The Globe and Mail


"Jolicoeur will be remembered by readers of Graham Greene's The Comedians, as Petit Pierre: dandy, journalist, informer, man-about-town. I knew him as a regular at the bar and on the terrace of the Hotel Oloffson, where he could be counted on to make an appearance each night at cocktail hour, with cane in hand, dressed in a jacket, open-necked shirt and foulard."
-Howard W. French