Born and educated in Port-au-Prince, she is most famous for the novels Fille d'Haïti (1954), La Danse sur le volcan (1957), Fonds des nègres (1960), and Amour, colère et folie (1968).

[3] Marie Vieux-Chauvet was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on September 16, 1916, to Constant Vieux, a Haitian politician, and his wife Delia Nones, a woman originally from the Virgin Islands.

[4] Vieux-Chauvet's works focus on class, color, race, gender, family structure and the upheaval of Haitian political, economic and social society during the United States occupation of Haiti[5] and the dictatorship of François Duvalier (Papa Doc).

[2] Fearing the dictator's legions of a spooky and dreaded Haiti's secret police, the Tonton Macoutes (Les Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale), she moved to New York City.

[8] An English translation of Amour, colère et folie (Love, Anger, Madness) by Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokur was published in 2009 with an introduction by Haitian-American writer Edwige Danticat.