To celebrate the release of Haiti Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Edwidge Danticat, Akashic Books asked contributors from both of their Haiti Noir volumes to participate in an exquisite corpse style story—a serial story in which each participant builds off of what the previous participants have written—to create an original piece of fiction with a decidedly dark tone. Check back each Friday through February 7th for a new installment of this six-part short story with sections from Roxane Gay, M.J. Fievre, Ibi Aanu Zoboi, Katia D. Ulysse, Josaphat-Robert Large, and Edwidge Danticat!

This first installment of Dark Days in Port-au-Prince comes from Haiti Noir 2: The Classics contributor Roxane Gay. It appears TONIGHT, Friday, January 3, on www.akashicbooks.com. It’s a great way to get your year off to a (free) dark start.

ROXANE GAY’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2012, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, the New York Times Book Review, and more. Her novel An Untamed State, which grew out of the story that appears in Haiti Noir 2: The Classics, will be published by Grove/Atlantic in 2014. That same year, her essay collection, Bad Feminist, will be published by Harper Perennial.