First black republic in the world, first independent country in Latin America, and first autonomous non-European state to carve itself out of Europe's universalist empires, Haiti has been central to the very concept of socio-political modernity. Its profoundly hybrid people and traditions, represented over the past two centuries by an exceptionally prolific community of writers and artists, affirm its relevance to cultural and aesthetic conceptions of modernity as well. From Indigenism and marvelous realism to the implementation of a politicized practice of Surrealism, the Haitian aesthetic tradition has been marked by a fearless capacity to imagine alternatives—alternatives that recall the revolutionary origins of the island nation and that firmly insist on Haiti's presence on a global stage.