Edwidge Danticat in Guernica
We Are All Going to Die
Nathalie Handal interviews Edwidge Danticat, January 2011
One year after the earthquake that devastated her native Haiti, the novelist on rebuilding the island, art in a time of trouble, and inhabiting bodies.
“Haitians are born surrealists,” says Edwidge Danticat (quoting a friend). It’s a surrealism found in le quotidien. In Haiti it’s common to see a peasant sleeping in a tight space—the author and MacArthur Fellow explains—his toe on a poster of Brigitte Bardot’s eyes. Or a one-room house with Paris Match collages all over its walls. Art is at the heart of the island’s daily life and the most nuanced and powerful ambassador Haiti has, she tells us in her latest book, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work. But what can art solve in this country’s present?
On January 12, 2010, a devastating earthquake followed by more than fifty aftershocks ravaged the island, leaving an estimated three million people affected—over two-hundred thousand dead, three-hundred thousand injured and more than one-and-a-half million displaced or homeless. This dark and horrid day also killed Maxo, Danticat’s cousin. The same Maxo who accompanied her uncle, alien 27041999, to the United States, and upon arrival was denied entry and accused of faking his illness. The next day, her uncle died in the custody of U.S. officials. Her uncle’s life story was poignantly captured in Danticat’s 2007 memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, nominated for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.
As Danticat and I spoke in November while she was visiting New York City, news of a cholera epidemic spreading in Haiti made headlines. This news was followed by accusations by Haitians that UN peacekeepers from Nepal were to blame. As the toll increased to one thousand dead, elections brought more instability. Riots broke out in the streets when preliminary voting was followed by rumors of fraud. Most candidates asked that the elections be discounted. There were nineteen candidates on the ballot, among the most popular were former-First Lady Mirlande Manigat, who was in first place, and Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, who was eliminated by ruling-party candidate Jude Celestin by less than 1 percent. The Organization of American States asked Haitian President René Préval to delay the announcement of the election results until an international panel of experts could review the vote. This action was taken in hopes of ceasing violence in the streets and conflicts between supporters.
In light of all the upheaval and tragic circumstances that have haunted Haiti in 2010, what solution can art offer? Perhaps none; perhaps, as Danticat suggests in Create Dangerously, art gives voice, and takes the international community away from a one-dimensional and narrow view of Haiti. It eradicates the idea that the island is only about turmoil and unrest, holding the world close to its pulse—its art, literature, and music. Danticat reminds us how far images of Morgan Freeman and Queen Latifah dancing on television to the music of Haiti’s Tabou Combo went.
Born in Haiti in 1969, Danticat came to the U.S. at age twelve. She holds a degree in French literature from Barnard College and an MFA from Brown University. Author of numerous books, notably, Breath, Eyes, Memory, a 1994 Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, nominated for the National Book Award, The Farming of Bones, winner of the 1999 American Book Award, and The Dew Breaker, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award. Create Dangerously is her first book of essays, which was adapted, updated, and expanded from the Toni Morrison Lecture she gave in 2008 at Princeton University.
Haiti is her shadow, and shadows loom around her. She allows them. And in return, they save her. While writing The Farming of Bones, she watched horrible videos of death in order to understand how people died. “It’s a lot of work to die,” she concludes. She saw this more personally with her father who struggled with pulmonary ï¬brosis for nine months before dying. “I’ve always had this fascination with death,” notes Danticat. “I don’t know if it’s something that was said to me in the neighborhood I grew up in. So I keep looking for it.”
Like all of Danticat’s books, Create Dangerously has her heartbeat—a steady movement, a wide cry, a constant echo, a soft breathing. She offers us glimpses of an island and culture she is passionate about—and her dedication to which never ceases. She has just finished a fiction anthology, Haiti Noir, that appears this month. Readers will discover new and unknown voices, as well as masters, such as Madison Smartt Bell, Yanick Lahens, and Evelyne Trouillot. As we prepare to part, I ask her what she thinks Toussaint L’Ouverture would say about Haiti today. What revolution would he lead? We look at each other. A blank stare. Maybe these daily surrealistic portraits are leading a revolution. They’re insisting on existing and in so doing, resisting.
—Nathalie Handal for Guernica
Nathalie Handal interviews Edwidge Danticat, January 2011
One year after the earthquake that devastated her native Haiti, the novelist on rebuilding the island, art in a time of trouble, and inhabiting bodies.
“Haitians are born surrealists,” says Edwidge Danticat (quoting a friend). It’s a surrealism found in le quotidien. In Haiti it’s common to see a peasant sleeping in a tight space—the author and MacArthur Fellow explains—his toe on a poster of Brigitte Bardot’s eyes. Or a one-room house with Paris Match collages all over its walls. Art is at the heart of the island’s daily life and the most nuanced and powerful ambassador Haiti has, she tells us in her latest book, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work. But what can art solve in this country’s present?
On January 12, 2010, a devastating earthquake followed by more than fifty aftershocks ravaged the island, leaving an estimated three million people affected—over two-hundred thousand dead, three-hundred thousand injured and more than one-and-a-half million displaced or homeless. This dark and horrid day also killed Maxo, Danticat’s cousin. The same Maxo who accompanied her uncle, alien 27041999, to the United States, and upon arrival was denied entry and accused of faking his illness. The next day, her uncle died in the custody of U.S. officials. Her uncle’s life story was poignantly captured in Danticat’s 2007 memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, nominated for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.
As Danticat and I spoke in November while she was visiting New York City, news of a cholera epidemic spreading in Haiti made headlines. This news was followed by accusations by Haitians that UN peacekeepers from Nepal were to blame. As the toll increased to one thousand dead, elections brought more instability. Riots broke out in the streets when preliminary voting was followed by rumors of fraud. Most candidates asked that the elections be discounted. There were nineteen candidates on the ballot, among the most popular were former-First Lady Mirlande Manigat, who was in first place, and Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, who was eliminated by ruling-party candidate Jude Celestin by less than 1 percent. The Organization of American States asked Haitian President René Préval to delay the announcement of the election results until an international panel of experts could review the vote. This action was taken in hopes of ceasing violence in the streets and conflicts between supporters.
In light of all the upheaval and tragic circumstances that have haunted Haiti in 2010, what solution can art offer? Perhaps none; perhaps, as Danticat suggests in Create Dangerously, art gives voice, and takes the international community away from a one-dimensional and narrow view of Haiti. It eradicates the idea that the island is only about turmoil and unrest, holding the world close to its pulse—its art, literature, and music. Danticat reminds us how far images of Morgan Freeman and Queen Latifah dancing on television to the music of Haiti’s Tabou Combo went.
Born in Haiti in 1969, Danticat came to the U.S. at age twelve. She holds a degree in French literature from Barnard College and an MFA from Brown University. Author of numerous books, notably, Breath, Eyes, Memory, a 1994 Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, nominated for the National Book Award, The Farming of Bones, winner of the 1999 American Book Award, and The Dew Breaker, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award. Create Dangerously is her first book of essays, which was adapted, updated, and expanded from the Toni Morrison Lecture she gave in 2008 at Princeton University.
Haiti is her shadow, and shadows loom around her. She allows them. And in return, they save her. While writing The Farming of Bones, she watched horrible videos of death in order to understand how people died. “It’s a lot of work to die,” she concludes. She saw this more personally with her father who struggled with pulmonary ï¬brosis for nine months before dying. “I’ve always had this fascination with death,” notes Danticat. “I don’t know if it’s something that was said to me in the neighborhood I grew up in. So I keep looking for it.”
Like all of Danticat’s books, Create Dangerously has her heartbeat—a steady movement, a wide cry, a constant echo, a soft breathing. She offers us glimpses of an island and culture she is passionate about—and her dedication to which never ceases. She has just finished a fiction anthology, Haiti Noir, that appears this month. Readers will discover new and unknown voices, as well as masters, such as Madison Smartt Bell, Yanick Lahens, and Evelyne Trouillot. As we prepare to part, I ask her what she thinks Toussaint L’Ouverture would say about Haiti today. What revolution would he lead? We look at each other. A blank stare. Maybe these daily surrealistic portraits are leading a revolution. They’re insisting on existing and in so doing, resisting.
—Nathalie Handal for Guernica
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