In the 1990s, as Haiti continued to withstand the aftershocks of the end of a 29 year father-son dictatorship, the United States and France hovered in the periphery to “help” Haiti’s transition to democracy. World systems theory dictates that a country like Haiti would be relegated to the periphery while countries like the United States and France inhabit the core. The Unhealed Wound: Contemporary Black Diasporic Literature and the Continuing Memory of the Duvalier Dictatorship inverts this dynamic. This work places Port-au-Prince at the core, while New York and Paris—secondary homes to Haitian exiles and emigres—becomes the periphery. Traversing national borders, politics and disciplines, this study investigates how memory, history and literature shape the physical and imagined cityscapes of New York, Port-au-Prince and Paris. Bringing together authors such as Edwidge Danticat, Lyonel Trouillot and Shay Youngblood, Edwards questions and explores dynamics of the Black immigrant body and Haitian body in these cities in the 1980’s, 1990’s and early 2000’s