Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticatis a Haitian–American novelist and short story writer...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1969
beautiful memories past
We try to keep the beautiful memories, but other things from the past creep up on us.
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.
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.
building country interests permanent serve states structure united
Most of them, they serve the interests of the United States but are not building any kind of permanent structure for the country they are affecting.
castro glue held revolution states time together united
You have also at the same time Castro and the revolution being the glue that held the United States together with a lot of these dictators.
aware columbia haiti happens influence people places policies united
Also, people are not often aware of the way the United States' policies influence what happens in places like Haiti or El Salvador or Nicaragua. Or in Columbia right now.
daily future thrown
I think daily that the country's future is being thrown to the wind.
affects bad brings connected happened joining larger people questions realizing recently scary spain
On some level, now, we are joining the larger world and realizing that we are connected with people in these very scary ways, sometimes. What happened recently in Spain affects us here and brings questions up. It is too bad that people have to be shaken up in that way.
amazing dreams growing knew people poor raise voice
I wanted to raise the voice of a lot of the people that I knew growing up, and this was, for the most part, poor people who had extraordinary dreams but also very amazing obstacles.
country fact limited rich shocking struggle unless
In fact that is the struggle that most Americans - As rich as this country is, most Americans are very limited in their interaction with the world, unless the world comes to us in a very shocking way.
florida groups citizenship
I see the sharp inequality between how Haitian and Cuban refugees are treated in Florida. Both groups come here because their lives are equally desperate. But on arrival, the Haitians are incarcerated, and some are immediately repatriated, whereas Cubans get to stay and are eligible for citizenship.
giving greatest-gifts
The greatest gift anyone can give to a writer is time.
people risk heroin
In the 1980s, when people were just beginning to talk about AIDS, there were just a few categories of those who were at high risk: homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, and Haitians. We were the only ones identified by nationality.
teacher jobs school
It seemed from the media that we were being told that all Haitians had AIDS. At the time, I had just come from Haiti. I was twelve years old, and the building I was living in had primarily Haitians. A lot of people got fired from their jobs. At school, sometimes in gym class, we'd be separated because teachers were worried about what would happen if we bled. So there was really this intense discrimination.