Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticatis a Haitian–American novelist and short story writer...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1969
powerful talking earthquakes
Language is such a powerful thing. After the earthquake, I went to Haiti and people were talking about how [they] described this feeling of going through an earthquake. People really didn't have the vocabulary - before we had hurricanes. I'd talk with people and they'd say, "We have to name it; it has to have a name."
book writing thinking
I very much love a physical book myself. I think people who have had this experience of also seeing a book come together, from sitting down and writing the first word, to holding the binding in your hand, we have a deeper sentimental attachment to it than others might.
thinking drawing fiction
We've had fiction from the time of cave drawings. I think fiction, storytelling, and narrative in general will always exist in some form.
mind peace-of-mind levels
To be able to create you have to have peace of mind on some level.
airplane issues people
I'm not saying Cubans don't deserve asylum, but if it is a national security issue, there are people who are coming from Cuba on hijacked airplanes. Why isn't that a national security issue?
children thinking shields
I think we all wear some kind of mask. There are masks that shield us from others, but there are masks that embolden us, and you see that in carnival. The shiest child puts on a mask and can do anything and be anybody.
beautiful lying creativity
Sometimes we mask ourselves to further reveal ourselves, and it's always been connected to me with being a writer: We tell lies to tell a greater truth. The story is a mask; the characters you create are masks. That appeals to me. Aside from that, too, in the carnival the masks were beautiful, and offered a vision of Haitian creativity.
thinking people joy
People often think of Haiti as a place where you're not supposed to have any joy. I wanted to show that this is a place with joy.
character working-it involved
Once you're involved in the work, it's really just you and the characters and the words.
children glasses shy
Being a shy child, I always longed for a mask. Even in my adult life, I have glasses, they are my mask.
daughter role-models roles
I hope to be a good role model for my daughters.
book writing thinking
I think it's hard to write a book about happiness because fiction requires tension and complication.
people empathy suffering
There is something human about the way people react to and identify with suffering. There's a lot more empathy in the world than we perhaps realize.
glasses people littles
When I meet people for the first time, I always put on my glasses because I feel like that's a little something extra between me and them. It's like the Laurence Dunbar poem "We Wear the Mask."