Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticatis a Haitian–American novelist and short story writer...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1969
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."
liars writing thinking
Even when I think of writing fiction, it's being kind of a liar, a storyteller, a weaver, and there's that sense of how much of this is your life. The story is a way you unravel your life from behind a mask.
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.
powerful influence storyteller
Whole interaction between the storyteller and the listeners had a very powerful influence on me.
haiti boat claims
The Attorney General made another astonishing claim, that there were Pakistani terrorists possibly coming on these boats from Haiti. No one has ever seen a Pakistani coming on a boat from Haiti yet.
lying haiti doe
Life's hard in Haiti right now. And the hardest thing is that the future does not lie with one person.