Aubelin Jolicoeur

Aubelin Jolicoeur (30 April 1924 – 14 February 2005) was a Haitian journalist and columnist for Haiti's main newspaper Le Nouvelliste. Known as "Mr. Haiti", he was a dandy, art collector, and director of tourism. He was portrayed by Graham Greene in a novel, and mingled with celebrities who visited Haiti's landmark Hotel Oloffson. His heyday was the 1950s to 70s, and was a local institution into old age.

Biography Aubelin Jolicoeur was born on 30 April 1924 in Jacmel, to a French father and a Haitian mother. There were rumors that his mother went into labor at midnight while walking past a cemetery, where she gave birth. At age 19 he moved to the capital with no money or prospects, yet determined to "put Haiti on the map".

Jolicoeur frequented Port-au-Prince's landmark Hotel Oloffson for over 40 years. Described as the hotel's "palace gadfly", he was a "diminutive, squeaky-voiced, cane-twirling gossip columnist dandy". According to historian Georges Corvington, "the hotel can't be separated from the personality of Aubelin Jolicoeur. He animated the place. He cultivated a lot of acquaintances and was the center of the hotel. Foreign artists and celebrities came to see him. He was a celebrity in his own right." He wore white linen suits, paisley ascots, and carried a gold tipped cane. He wrote articles in Le Nouvelliste about the comings and goings of celebrity guests at the hotel. He would greet guests at the airport introducing himself as "Mr. Haiti". In his obituary of Greene for the Guardian, Jolicoeur wrote: "I was grateful to Graham to have enhanced my legend to such an extent that some fans kneel at my feet or kiss my hand in meeting a man living his own legend." Michel Beaulieu, a confidant of Greene's, later said that "Graham Greene made Aubelin more famous than he was."

Jolicoeur was a collector of Haitian paintings. The Haitian writer, Jean Métellus, recalled that French novelist André Malraux compared Aubelin Jolicoeur's art gallery to a museum.

Jolicoeur died in 2005, possibly of either Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, in a Port-au-Prince rooming house. He is buried in Jacmel, at the same cemetery where he was purportedly born, coming into life and going to death at the same place.