Edwidge Danticat Q&A
Nothing is Lost
By Arisa White
Edwidge Danticat, who is this year’s judge for Kore Press’ Short
Fiction Award. Having fallen in love as an undergrad with
Danticat’s Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories that brought
the beauty and heartache of Haiti to the attention of the
American literary scene, it was such a pleasure to ask her about
her writing process and inspirations. Danticat has written and
edited several books, including The Farming of Bones, The Dew
Breaker, Brother, I’m Dying, the anthology Haiti Noir, and the
young adult novel Untwine. Born and raised in Haiti until
immigrating to Brooklyn, New York at age twelve, Danticat has
been writing since she was nine years old. A graduate from
Brown University’s MFA program and a 2009 recipient of the
MacArthur Genius Grant, she currently lives in Miami with her
husband and daughter, and continues to advocate for issues
affecting Haitians, here and abroad. —Arisa White
AR: How do you find the story? What makes it a story worth writing?
ED: I enjoy stories in general. I love being immersed in another reality, in another world. What makes a story worth writing for me is exactly what makes it worth reading. Whether it’s character driven, or plot driven, or language driven, it’s just a powerful experience that makes me feel a little bit differently about the world than when I started reading or writing that story.
We refer to a text as “the body” and I wonder how you relate the written word to the body or the body to the word?
I don’t see a text as a body in the human body sense. The human body has its own singular complexities. There may be some parallels. Bodies of work and our own bodies are things that we, at least I, are always trying to keep together. But obviously we write with our bodies and we write about bodies, but I’m a bit weary of merging the two too much.
What are the cultural inspirations for your work—beside other writers? What are the sounds, places, textures that give you inspiration for structure, rhythm, metaphor, pacing?
Life in general inspires my work. The rhythms of everyday life. Family, friendships, and yes bodies. Memory and history too. Daily observations. Everything that’s happening in the world can be a source of inspiration in some way, as well as things that are happening in our lives, within ourselves. I just try to be open to everything, to be like a sponge, someone on whom, as Henry James said, nothing is lost.
What do you do to help you see things differently? How do you refresh your writing?
I travel. I read. I live. I love. I allow myself to be vulnerable. I try to live what is really an ordinary life. I find that allowing myself to step away from writing to do other things, from playing with my kids to traveling, just to be with friends and family, just living a life really, feeds my writing more than banging my head against a wall twelve hours a day trying to find the right word.
How do you begin, how do you end?
I begin in the middle. I think starting in media res, right in the middle of the action, is actually good advice. Grab the reader by the throat, if you will. Even if you backtrack a bit later I often have some kind of ending in mind when I begin, even if that ending or beginning does not end up in the same place in the final version of the story.
In thinking about the obstacles you’ve faced, what are the balances you are aspiring to achieve in your work, and in your life?
I am always trying to balance my obligations to myself and to others, to balance this work that is very solitary, and at times selfish, with service and community work and of course with my obligations to family and loved ones. But all those tensions serve the work well as well. You’re a person living a life, just like your characters are. That helps in giving you some insight. The truth is I am a constant worrier.
I worry about loved ones, about the state of the world, particularly with what is happening in Haiti, the country where I was born, and the United States, the country where I live now. I am a constant worrier, and it would probably be worse if I didn’t have my writing as an outlet to balance some of this out.
What is the truest thing you know about the act of writing?
That it is must be done. That you have to sit down and do it. And only you can write the words that come out of you. No one else can. My writing is possibly the truest reflection of who I am, with all my complexities, faults, insecurities and all of that.
What is on your writing desk?
I used to have a portrait of Jean Michel Basquiat on my desk, and then I got too lost in his eyes. Now I have nothing but my computer and printer. I try to have a blank space so other images can come.
Why did you begin to write young adult novels and children’s books?
I’ve been writing them since I was a teenager myself. Those books got published after my adult books did, but I wrote many of my teen stories even before my adult ones. I really like trying on different voices and telling different stories and now that I have so many young people in my life, nieces and nephews galore, it’s great having those books to share with them.
Share something about crafting a story that blew your mind and remains in your toolbox.
When I was starting out, I could never finish a story because the stories really paled compared to what I imagined in my mind and one writing teacher told me that I should never expect my stories to perfectly match what I imagined, that the mind is infinite but there are only so many words in any language. That clicked for me, so with all my stories now, I try to get as close as I can to the vision in my head, but I know it will not be absolutely perfect. And how do you get as close to perfection as possible? Revision. Someone said that writing is something like 90 percent revision. I live by that.
How do you navigate transitions? What are your tricks?
I think Toni Morrison’s Sula is a master text in transition. That novel covers nearly a century in fewer than 200 pages. Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient also does transitions extremely well. Both books handle time masterfully as well. My trick is to let the story guide me. You find some kind of line that you follow throughout the story, some image, and some person that is kind of your guide even through jumps in the narrative. Take out the stuff that is repetitive, that folks won’t miss, even if it makes it harder to follow. Trust the reader. Look at the movies. Often in movies, transitions happen when the screen is momentarily blank
As a writer and activist what impact do you want to make on the world? And why?
There are too many true activists in my life for me to claim myself one, people who are hard at work every single day trying to make the world better, putting themselves in the crossfires and their lives on the line. My modest hope with the work that I do, through my writing and my acts of civil involvement, is that I can touch and motivate people, inform them in a way that inspires them to become more engaged in our world.
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Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Create Dangerously , and Claire of the Sea Light. She is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2. She has written five books for children and young adults, Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou , and Mama’s Nightingale, as well as a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is a 2009 MacArthur fellow. Her most recent books is Untwine, a young adult novel. (photo by Jonathan Demme)