Although the Haitian Revolution generated a tremendous intellectual and cultural response in areas ranging from philosophy to historiography to twentieth-century literature and art, the work created by Haitians themselves has yet to be fully explored. "Beyond the Slave Narrative" presents an account of two separate trends in revolutionary-era Haitian literary tradition: the political works produced by Jean-Jacques Dessalines and other revolutionaries and the transcription of popular Creole poetry originating from colonial Saint-Domingue. Divergent in nature, these two trends nevertheless document the growing cultural autonomy and influence of the Haitian literary voice on the larger Afro-diasporic tradition.