If you ask ChatGPT who are the people born in Haiti most relevant in the world today, will never give you an answer that does not include the name of the writer Edwidge Danticat.
I asked ChatGPT who is the most famous Haitian in the world and you are on the list. Do you feel partly responsible for the image that many people have of you? Haiti?
It’s strange. I think so. It is important that someone else or I offer another image of Haiti. In the news everything is always sad and sensational. In English they use the word humanize, but why should you humanize people, who are already human? People see us in only one and very limited way. The more versions of our lives and the more we tell our stories, the more important it is.
Danticat carries novels, short stories, screenplays and non-fiction in his portfolio because he believes that art “is an extraordinary ambassador for culture.” This allows the reader to know the soul of people. “My responsibility is to tell these other types of stories that are not the ones you see in the news”.
Women in Haiti by Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat began writing at age 9, publishing at age 14 (two years after moving to the United States, where he still lives), and has not stopped since. Consonni recently edited in Spanish “Breath, eyes, memory”her 1994 novel that was recommended by Oprah Winfrey in her book club and took some Haitianness to the world.
It is the story of three generations of women who are affected by different local scourges. The mother-daughter bond and the sociocultural conflicts of her native country are two major themes of her work, which is completed with “Krik? Krak!”, “The Farming of Bones”, “The Dew Breaker”, “Brother, I’m Dying” and “Claire of the Sea Light”, among other publications.
In that portfolio she also carries dozens of recognitions: The New York Times Magazine chose her as one of the «30 people under 30» to keep in mind and Jane magazine named her one of the «15 bravest women of the year.»
“Breath, Eyes, Memory” is a fictionalization of his childhood in Haiti and his pre-adolescence in the United States. Sophie, the protagonist and a sort of alter ego of Danticat, witnesses how her mother and grandmother subject their daughters to “tests” to prove their virginity and fight against the local situation, already at that time – the eighties, a time in which much of the action takes place – dominated by poverty, violence and machismo.
What was the most significant change you observed in the reality of Haitian women since the novel was published until today?
The novel was published when he was 24 years old. Now I’m 56. A lot of things changed in that period of time. But I think the most important change right now is aligned with what is happening in the country: there are many armed groups occupying neighborhoods and the situation for women and girls, as reported by many UN reports and women’s organizations, is especially difficult..
How do you see the new generation of young women in Haiti?
Young women in the countryside have a very different life from those in the city. I think the book tries to delve into that. Many of those now leaving the city because of the war moved to more rural areas, where life tends to be a little more peaceful and safe. Today’s young women have opened their eyes to many things..
Danticat identifies lights at the end of the tunnel in economic and technological references. The Internet connection gives rise to globalization and, therefore, opportunities: getting educated, military and working from a single place without exposing yourself to the dangers of everyday life. “We lost many feminist leaders in the 2010 earthquake, but now at the forefront is a new group of young women who were previously politically active in some protests.”
A country in permanent crisis
Haiti has been in crisis for years. In the last fifteen, after the 2010 earthquake, things got out of hand. The number of gangs grew, internal political struggles were emphasized, and there was even the assassination of a president.
Homicides, kidnappings, airport closures, constant changes of prime ministers. Chaotic scenes for any republic that became so common there that they were amalgamated with everyday life, they became another brick of the present.
Does Haiti have a solution? How is the problem of armed groups resolved?
One of the solutions is to focus on who is financing criminal gangs. In most places where they make the rules, the people are poor. How do they suddenly have guns that the police don’t? We will never have a real solution unless those who are financing the gangs are found and punished. They are often powerful people, business people, politicians.
Danticat talks about “massive business”: «There is no real solution. You can get mercenaries, drones and all that, but the quid The issue is who is financing the weapons and how they are obtaining them. Unless we don’t have a network, there is no solution.»
And the people, in the midst of chaos…
Yes. There are people who cannot stay in their homes. I have relatives who have moved three or four times in the last two years, each time to a new place..
Can you go to Haiti if you want? Or is it difficult?
You can go north. People travel from Fort Lauderdale to Cap Haitien and then circulates inside from there. It is very difficult to get to the streets. There are some places where, for internal circulation, armed groups have designed places where people have to pay to get there. And lately, people have been traveling by boat. Many neighborhoods also have alerts to go.
His advice for young writers
As the world passes by, Danticat teaches in the Humanities in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. He tries to combine work with his family life (he has two children, one 16 and the other 20), but it is difficult for him.
Write when you find a space. “My method is: when possible” he says after imploring to have one day to write at least 300 words.
“I always tell young writers this, because sometimes they ask them for advice: they have to write around the life they have. Adjust to your life and write”.
