Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticatis a Haitian–American novelist and short story writer...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1969
cities government people
You have all these people in the city and everything has become centralized. If you live outside the city and you need a birth certificate or some official paper from the government, you have to travel to the city.
years haiti facts
And the fact that Haiti was occupied for 19 years by the United States, from 1915 to 1934.
home trying complicated
Especially moments when things are very difficult and complicated for me and I am still trying to grasp what is happening and I am still trying to understand and to reach family back home.
writing interesting people
It's interesting to see people overcome things. Because if you didn't overcome, you wouldn't be writing it.
writing dark hair
No, women like you don't write. They carve onion sculptures and potato statues. They sit in dark corners and braid their hair in new shapes and twists in order to control the stiffness, the unruliness, the rebelliousness.
emotion
Anger is a wasted emotion.
stars moon sky
Here, though, there is nothing. Nothing at all. The sky seems empty even when I am looking at the moon and stars.
people haiti rich
Vodou is one of the religions practiced in Haiti, a rich religion for the people.
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.
people trying alternatives
People who want alternative information have to try so hard to find it.
country thinking cnn
People think that there is a country there that these people are only around when they are on CNN. I don't think that's limited to Haiti.
military school army
The whole military structure in Haiti that existed until the early 1990s was put in place by the American occupation. At the top there were Southern white officers, who led an army that crushed the indigenous resistance - the cacos. A high-ranking U.S. officer said when he arrived, "To think these niggers speak French!" Later, Haitian officers attended the notorious School of the Americas at Fort Benning. The threat from the U.S. is something that is always hanging over people's heads: If we don't behave, we'll have occupation again.
army fighting america
Napoleon had been fighting this army of slaves and free people in Haiti and it depleted his forces. And after the Revolution, when the French were driven out, they stopped and sold this big chunk of North America to the Americans for very little money.
reading ideas iraq
In terms of the idea of long-term occupation - I have been reading a little bit more about this period - and you can see in that occupation are many lessons for the current occupation of Iraq. So we have these connections that go way back that people aren't aware of.