Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticatis a Haitian–American novelist and short story writer...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1969
giving greatest-gifts
The greatest gift anyone can give to a writer is time.
years haiti facts
And the fact that Haiti was occupied for 19 years by the United States, from 1915 to 1934.
queens people faces
One of the things that sparked my interest in this is the case of Emmanuel Constant, who started a militia called FRAPH that was backed by the CIA. FRAPH killed thousands of Haitians in the early 1990s. Now while Constant is living comfortably in Queens, other Haitians are being deported. I wanted to see how those who have been bruised by people like that deal with coming face to face with their torturers.
people trying alternatives
People who want alternative information have to try so hard to find it.
said interest policy
Someone has said that nations have interests, they don't have friends, and you see that over and over in U.S. policy.
years independence example
To start with, for example this year, 2004, is the bicentennial of Haitian independence.
new-york past hair
The past is like the hair on our head. I moved to New York when I was twelve, but you always have this feeling that wherever you come from, you physically leave it, but it doesn't leave you.
tiny cups waterfalls
All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love, like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too.
thank-you years people
More and more people are able to access information - thank goodness we have the Internet and if you are interested you can find things. Which is different than even 20 years ago.
literature needs humans
We need literature because we wouldn’t fully know ourselves without it. We need good literature to be fully human.
school sacrifice tree
You learned in school that you have pencils and paper only because the trees gave themselves in unconditional sacrifice.
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."
pain love-you love-you-more
No one will love you more than you love your pain.
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.