Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticatis a Haitian–American novelist and short story writer...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1969
emotion
Anger is a wasted emotion.
character working-it involved
Once you're involved in the work, it's really just you and the characters and the words.
art luxury art-is
Art is a luxury but also a necessity.
people trying stories
I'm happy to be part of this chorus of people who are trying to tell more complex stories about Haiti.
media people attention
The way the media cycle works, the way the news works, and the way people's attention span works, is that we only learn that people exist when there is crisis.
mind peace-of-mind levels
To be able to create you have to have peace of mind on some level.
beautiful art people
That has always been a strength of Haiti: Beyond crisis, it has beautiful art; it has beautiful music. But people have not heard about those as much as they heard about the coups and so forth. I always hope that the people who read me will want to learn more about Haiti.
book mean careers
I don't know what will happen to the physical book and what it will mean for authors. I worry whether it will mean people can still make their careers this way. Will whatever comes next allow people to be able to own their ideas and be able to take time to develop them?
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.
powerful influence storyteller
Whole interaction between the storyteller and the listeners had a very powerful influence on me.
book writing thinking
I think it's hard to write a book about happiness because fiction requires tension and complication.
thinking community stories
I think it's hard for an outsider to capture the flavor of a community and all its nuances, so ultimately Haitian-Americans need to start sharing intimate accounts of their stories.
daughter role-models roles
I hope to be a good role model for my daughters.
fun writing class
After the Dance was my first attempt at nonfiction. I'd never really participated in carnival, and I really wanted to go. It sounded like a wonderfully fun thing to do. And I wanted to write something happy about Haiti, something celebratory. And going to carnival gave me a chance to do that, because it is one of the instances in Haiti when people shed their class separation and come together.