Conversations with Tyler - Edwidge Danticat on Haitian Art and Literature

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Edwidge Danticat left Haiti when she was 12, she says, but Haiti never left her. At 14 she began writing stories about the people and culture she loved, and now is an internationally acclaimed novelist and short story writer as well a MacArthur Genius Fellow. Rather than holding herself out as an expert or sociologist on Haiti, she seeks to treat her characters and culture with nuance and show the beauty and complexity of the place she calls home. She joined Tyler to discuss the reasons Haitian identity and culture will likely persist in America, the vibrant Haitian art scenes, why Haiti has the best food in the Caribbean, how radio is remaining central to Haitian politics, why teaching in Creole would improve Haitian schools, what's special about the painted tap-taps, how tourism influenced Haitian art, working with Jonathan Demme, how the CDC destroyed the Haitian tourism industry, her perspective on the Black Lives Matter movement, why she writes better at night, the hard lessons of Haiti's political history, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded September 18th, 2020 Other ways to connect Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter  Email us: [e-mail] Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox. 

Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. Learn more at Mercadis.org. And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit Conversationswithtyler.com. Hello, everyone. Welcome again to Conversations with Tyler. Today I am very pleased to be chatting with Edwidge Dantica, the famed Haitian American author.

Edwidge, thank you for coming on the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I have so many questions. Let's start with one about you. Now, you moved to the United States from Haiti, I believe, when you were 12. How is it you have learned so much about Haitian history in the meantime, since you didn't do most of your schooling in Haiti? Well, I often say that, you know, and my parents used to say it as well, that I left Haiti, but Haiti didn't leave me. And 12 is, I think, young enough to transition somewhat easily, but also to have formed so many

memories and to have actually had a big chunk of primary education in Haiti and having learned both oral history and written history. So I brought a lot of that with me to the U.S. And enough that I was curious when I got here to find out more. from this side of things. So I think it was, in part, a love for Haiti that continued and also a curiosity about history in general, but Haitian history in particular. Now, there's a shift, I think, in Haitian cultural history.

If you think of the 1960s or 70s, Haitian cultural history is centered in Haiti. So you have Mick Jagger, Jocelyn Kennedy, Onassis. They go to Porto-Prince-Petionville. they buy paintings, they bring them back. Everything is very Haitian-centered. And that seems to end in the 1980s. Why did that happen? Well, yeah, there was a time, even in the 50s where you had cruise ships going to Haiti,

which I've always found somewhat interesting because all that time that you had that, you know, the tourism, sort of that high level of tourism was still doing the dictatorship. And so people were going at that time anyway. the folks you mentioned and others. And then in the 1980s, during the AIDS epidemic, then Haiti was designated by the CDC as patients were labeled a high risk group for AIDS. And we were the only ones designated by nationality. It was patients, homophiliacs, herring addicts, and homosexuals. And so that certainly, that came out of a was some cases of people who had contracted AIDS and who came to a hospital here in Miami and

were reported to the CDC. And so that killed really, that designation killed the tourism industry in Haiti. It was later, you know, after much, you know, demonstrations, after a lot of research, it was corrected. But it really killed whatever tourism industry there was in Haiti, which was already kind of a strange kind of tourism anyway because, you know, if people felt like happy to go at a time of, you know, very strict dictatorship, that there was always already something a little strange about that. But whatever tourism industry there was was destroyed by the age epidemic. If you think of Haitian culture today, is it correct to think that the Haitian diaspora is now Haitian culture? So if you think of Haitian painting,

well, there's Duval Carrier, but he's lived in Puerto Rico and, France, in Florida. You are the leading Haitian writer, if one were going to call you that. Wycliffe-Shahn from Haiti, but now mostly in North America, Leila McCalla. Some would even call Basquiat a Haitian artist. I mean, is that now outside of Haiti what Haitian culture is? No. I think that would be incorrect to say because there is still such a, there is a great vibrant culture inside Haiti. And there are wonderful writers inside Haiti as well. There's wonderful visual artists, musicians.

And so I think if you think of it like any other diaspora, there's sort of we're going to be like if you're in North America or if you're out, you're, there's some mechanisms that make that, you know, our work more visible. My work is in English. So naturally people have more access to it. like more easily, but there's a really strong and vibrant culture inside Haiti as well, that people like us, you know, we feel fed by, you know, that we feel is still important to

us as readers, you know, I'm a writer, but I'm also a reader. I'm going to, you know, I appreciate art. I'm, you know, I'm on the, on the council of the Sancha Dar in Haiti, an esteemed institution that goes back, you know, several decades now. So there is, there's still that culture. And it's, it's really a powerful statement, I think, to Haitians and Haitian culture, because there's so many obstacles all the time in the way of artists in Haiti, but they, you know, they still are thriving and are very, really wonderful, express what's happening very powerfully through their work. Do you think the Haitian diaspora is culturally? stable, or do you think it will, in essence, be absorbed and assimilated into more narrowly

Afro-American culture? Because there's often so much happening in Haiti, let's say, that tie, you know, what we would call that l'buit, you know, the umbilical cord is really married to Haiti. And even over several generations, like, you know, the Haitians, who I know, I don't want to speak for everybody, remain very connected to Haiti and want their children to know. Haiti and want that connection through language, through food, through music. So the diaspora, you know, no diaspora is fully stable. There's, of course, there's integration, there's a simulation, there's, that happens with every immigrant community over the generations, certainly for sure.

But there's a certain tie to Haiti that the diaspora has. There's so many diaspora organizations, that neighborhood organizations where people support schools and the neighborhoods where they come from where they support organizations. And part of it, I think that tie, that connection, is connected to the fact that there is, that Haiti is often in crisis. And people in the diaspora are often the first line responders,

right? And after people in Haiti, inside Haiti, you know, after Haitians in Haiti, but the Haitian diaspora, even it's within our families. If there's an illness, if there's, you know, and that sometimes extends to the larger community. So I think there will be, definitely there's integration, you know, I think, but I don't see,

I think we have a diaspora that goes back, you know, further than people know, yet that connection to Haiti throughout the generations has remained. And then with these artists that you mentioned, you know, Lila Makala is, she's a wonderful artist born of Haitian parents, yet her music reflects that artists like Melissa Lavaux, you know, you mentioned Bastia. You know, that's also a kind of testament to the thread that runs to Haiti in the diaspora.

Do you think there is, in fact, a natural language for Haitian literature? So if you think of the earlier Haitian classics that you've had a hand in translating, they were written in French. Your work, of course, is written in English. It's been slow to have been translated into Creole. Is it a fundamental fact about the future of Haitian literature that there's not a natural language there? It's such a topic of discussion often among critics of Haitian literature.

What language is Haitian literature written in? And I think now people, I mean, some people, I can't speak for everyone, but I think most people who study Haitian literature will say that it's now a multilingual literature. There's literature in Creole, certainly, which it's probably closer to the primary language, to the primary language that most Haitians speak Creole. And that was slow to come. There was always literature in Creole, but not as much as there is now. Haitian literature is mostly written in French. And like you said, we've worked on translating.

I've worked with others and translating, for example, a masterpiece of Haitian literature called Lies Paster Sima by Jacques-Stein, which we translated with Carol Coates as in the flicker of an eyelid. And I edited these two books, Haiti Noir and Hayd Noir 2, in which we translated many contemporary Haitian writers. And then we have writers now who are Haitian, American, or Haitian Canadian like Raksin Gay and Miriam Tansi, who write directly in English.

So it's a literature now that it's a kind of multilingual literature through my, you know, immigration and migration. And we have writers who are writing in Chile in the Dominican Republic and Spanish. And that's another growing layer of Haitian literature abroad. You know, that's, so far mostly produced a lot of poetry in Spanish. But there was a novel before by a Haitian writer, and Michelin Ducek, who had written one of the first novels about Haiti and Spanish. So it's a growing, I mean, it's a linguistically interesting literature

and to see all the tentacles of it, if you will. What do you think of the, you might call them outsider novels about Haiti? So there's Graham Green, there's Victor Hugo's Bug Jargle, right, which is about the Haitian Revolution. Are those cultural appropriation? Are they bad novels? How do they strike you? Some are good.

you know, some are bad. You know, there's some wonderful ones like Madison Smart Bell's trilogy, also was rising, you know, in the Haitian Revolution. I think that those were wonderful. There's some really great ones. There's some that are a little cringy. But I wouldn't say to anybody that you can't write about. Yeah, you can't write about it. I think really writers should be able to write whatever they want. You should expect people to respond. And I think, you know, if you do it with nuance and care, that's really important. The temptation, you know, there's some troves that often sometimes people just fall into when they're writing about Haiti, the zombie situation. Sometimes they approach it like it's never been done before.

So I think if you do it with care, if you do it with nuance, I'm open to reading it. Why does Haiti have the very best food in the Caribbean? Well, because we just do. I'm perhaps biased, you know. I just have to say overall in the Caribbean, we have an amazing food. You know, there's wonderful food throughout the Caribbean. But I think Haitian food in particular I love because we have great spices. And even, you know, if the food is a little fad in some cases, you have like the PPs,

which is sort of a pickled cabbage, carrots, like a spice that you sprinkle on top. For people who like meat, there's guilla, which is pork, tasso, goat. And there's stuff that even if you're vegan, you can like, like Maimoulet, which is cornmeal, sauce poise. I think it's a very rich and wonderful cuisine, but I am biased. And I think if people who have not had Haitian food, you should definitely, if you know anybody who's Haitian on January 1st, go over their house through, when we can go over people's houses again, go for Su Jumu, which is a squash soup that we drink on the 1st of January

to celebrate Haitian independence. Why is Haitian black mushroom rice so good? It's the mushroom. That's the key. And actually, you know, I've had, I live in Miami, and that gives me a little more access to the Jojo. And so I've had to ship to friends throughout the states. And there's a key to it in terms of just how you, like, washing the mushroom and just the right.

They try to make a kind of like cube thing, but the cube thing is just not the same as just like the actual mushroom that you boil and you squeeze. And if you ever, like some people, if you're from the north, my friends from the north, my friends from the north will put some cashews in that. That's like another level with some cash shoes. The collective buses in Haiti, the Tapts, of course. Why are they so beautifully painted? Why does that make economic sense? Well, the thing is, I mean, it's people who, like, and I've gone to Haiti with a lot of, you know, foreigners. Like me. When there's a time when I used to go, we had a, a,

a program for college students every summer. And I used to love, like, when, when they land to see the tap tap. So it's just really, it's so, it's so striking because it just feels like, oh, I'm in this world full of art, you know, and it's like they seem to be moving canvases. And what I love personally most about tap tap, even after you get used to the, to the visual feast that they are, I love the sayings on them. And you would see, like, you know, of course, basketball stars from here.

I mean, I think at some point, like, not too long ago, like, there was like Tony Morrison after she died was on a tap tap. It's just, you know, people really soak what's happening around, but the sayings are also great. So there's one of my favorite sayings on the tap tap was, what palet, my travail, you're talking and I'm working. And I felt like it was so powerful in terms of like how you respond to. sort of people who talk badly about you. It's like, what palet, you're talking,

I'm walking, you know, I'm working. And also the tap tups with the art sometimes like, will have messages of gratitude. Like a tap tap might have a message of gratitude

to the driver's mother or to whoever contributed. A lot of them are, you know, to the Jesus, to God, to the virgin and other religious figures, but also to people

in the, the person's life who contributed to the business. And I always find them very beautiful to look at, but also really wonderful moving pieces of art. If I think of the Haitian arts today, I think of painting possibly as having peaked between the 40s and the 70s, and the most interesting work today tends to be in voodoo sculpture. Why has that shift come about?

And those are very large pieces. They're like installations. They're hard to buy. They're hard to transport. Well, I think if you stayed there, you would be reducing your possible level of enjoyment, right? Because what's most in that early period, you know, the Santuadar period in the 40s, like the early period, when the tourism that you were talking about, when people went to Haiti, what they bought the most with what they call it the naive primitive art, which is a super colorful, really beautiful

figures, often market scenes. And so that, that's traveled very well. But there was always at that same time artists who were a little bit more adventurous, artists who were like somewhat abstract. At the same time that there were these artists who were like, this is what the tourists want. That's what I'm going to produce, right? And so throughout the Caribbean, even if you went to other islands,

you would see these paintings. And then they became almost a little bit mass produced. But they were gorgeous. I have some. But the sculptures you're talking about, I think those were started actually. We used to call them. I used to work for Jonathan Demi, the filmmaker,

who was a huge collector of Haitian art. And in the office, whenever we acquired those sculptures, you know, when we bought, I traveled a lot to Haiti with him. And when he would buy, he called him Leo Toes, because the original artist was Leo Toe. And when I was growing up in cemeteries, often you didn't, we had metal flowers really because you would do like a wreath of metal with and it would be metal from oil drums because that lasted longer, right?

As opposed to like if you have a wreath of just like roses that dies quickly. So people would make these beautiful wreaths. And so leotou was a great, he was from Seymark, which is really the home of these sculptures. And now there's a whole industry in those sculptures. for sure. And I have to say, like, they're very hard. I agree. You can't just like put that in your suitcase often like you were, the paintings that way people used to roll them, but they're gorgeous. And now they're almost three-dimensional, you know, like one Christmas, we bought one that was like a nativity scene that was just like 3D. But there are other, you know, there are a lot of

wonderful young artists now that just some of them are moving away from sort of the more primitive naive, Eunice, and de Lois, there's so many whose names are escaping me, but there are just wonderful artists were exploring. You mentioned Duval Chayé,

who is outside of Haiti, but there are quite a few other young artists who are inside Haiti who are doing, who would use both Pets Tauil of sculpture, but also do paintings, who do installations,

we're doing really exciting things. Iona Zobop by Lyotow, by the way. It's a great work. It's by the fireplace. Oh, wow. Yeah. Why is it you think that black African-Americans have not evolved as natural collectors of Haitian art? It seems to be much more the nerdy white guys who buy it or well-to-do families. Oh, I know a lot of African-Americans who collect Haitian art, you know, starting with, for example, Ishmael Reed, who his wife had a gallery, you know, people like Danny Glover. and even, you know, friends that again, when we traveled with folks to Haiti, a lot of them were African-American.

And, oh, I know there are quite a few African-American collectors. You know, I don't know my friend, Kay and Fabis, who has a gallery in L.A., called Gallery La Cay. And she has quite, it's a wonderful gallery because it's in their home. Her husband, Pascal, is an artist who's worked with the artist in Grand Rue, who do actually They have really amazing urban sculptures with, you know, discarded like dolls and computer boards and sometimes skulls. They recently had a show here at Moka. And in Kain, for example, I think he's worked with a lot of African-American collectors,

including some in Hollywood, but some and also, you know, ordinary people who collect as well. I mean, there's been, I think also this marriage of African-American art in some cases, with Haitian art like Laurie Maloo-Jones, who went to Haiti, who has spent time there, and kind of this connection there with some African-American artists who are very aware of Haitian art as well. How much voodoo inspiration is there in your writing? Well, it's part of the Haitian culture. I try, one of the things that when you're asking about the outside gaze of in Haitian literature,

I think sometimes it's easy to fall into that trap of like, oh, let me throw in some voodoo just to like, you know, exotify things. So I try to, in my work, I try that as a worldview. And, you know, some people might be practitioners. Some people might not be, you know. And I also like to show a whole range of religious practices in my characters because not everybody is monolithic, just everything. If they're not in their behavior, they're not monolithic in their religious practice as well.

So I try to show it as a whole range of religious practice. Like in Breath Eye's memory, for example, you know, the family certainly has. They have their family law. They have things that they have their own practice. But they also, you know, they're members of the family who also practice other religions. So like to show the whole range of religious practices that there would be in a family like that, some of them also, you know, Protestant. And sometimes that actually leads to some conflicts within some families.

So I like to show all the nuance of all that. Your novel about the twins, Untwine, isn't that just a voodoo novel? And I mean that as praise. I didn't think of it that way. There's certainly, you know, there's certainly twin Lois and Vodou. And these girls are twins. I'd always been fascinated by twins. but I think maybe that could be one interpretation,

but that wasn't sort of how I started out, but I think that could be one interpretation. To me, I just think Marasa, when I'm reading it, right? The whole myth of the twins and the rivalry and beginning, the end, struggle? Yeah, but I think if you, is it because they're Marasa, because there are a lot of novels about twins as well,

but they're written by people, who are not from Haiti. Like I said, I think I don't object to that as an interpretation, but I don't think that's the only thing that it is. It's also about sisterhood and illness and separation and so forth. But again, I'm fine with that interpretation. In a world with so much mobile and social media, do you think radio is still of central importance for Haitian politics as it had been in the past? Radio remains very important. For example, there are a lot of of cultural figures, even younger people in Haiti who emerged out of radio culture and now have transitioned into more social media who do lives and Facebook and but who started out

in radio. Radio certainly was very important when I was growing up and there weren't as many other outlets. But now I find for example, you know, my mother-in-law who's 85 who lives with us, She's in Haiti most of the time. But she, in addition to sometimes she'll watch a YouTube video about something that's happening in Haiti, but it will be a YouTube video of someone in a radio station. And she can watch it on YouTube. Someone can send the clip on WhatsApp.

So I think radio now is part of a series of like many different ways that people get information. It remains like when we're in the country, if you don't have internet, it remains one way that you get news on the radio. But it's also people also, I find even the older people in my life get a lot of news through their phones,

through WhatsApp, also through YouTube clips. And so there's a constant loop of information now that radio is just one part of. Whereas, for example, when I was younger, it was the primary, if not the only source of information. that we had. With a Haitian background, you think you have a different perspective on the fake news debates of the United States.

Because Haiti, it seems, had a lot of fake news well before social media. It was a kind of country of rumor in some ways, or not? I think you're thinking of this whole thing of maybe that expression, Tilly Jol, which is like the mouth that would go, I guess we'd be like Tilly. And that was a way that information is spread. I don't know. I think every culture has that kind of sort of rumor mill, if you will. I don't think that would be unique to Haitians.

What I recognize in the whole fake news debate is sort of the gradual slide towards autocracy. Certainly, those of us who have lived through dictatorship and other moments like that, you recognize the slippery slope, the demonization of media, the, you know, the sort of for silencing. It's the summer I was reading with my girls. We were reading Animal Farm. And it was just really striking, you know, sort of like all the parallels in terms of like what your eyes are seeing, you're not seeing.

So all that is very familiar in terms of like that whole thing of diminishing the press. of course, at full autocracy, you know, at full, then you kind of destroy the people who are giving the news. But there are ways now with, you know, with the social media to do it. Why do you think Haitian political history has shown so much instability in terms of turnover and the number of rulers? Haiti's history started, we started as a country with everything against us right there. revolution was an impossibility to so many people. So these enslaved people fought the French, the British, you know, the Spanish to start

the first Black Republic. The first place in the world really when enslaved people overcame their master's and started this nation in a world where slavery was the norm. So Haiti was shunned. we had to pay to the French for this independence until into the next century. And so I think there was so much stacked against us. And then, you know, in the early 1900s, you had the very long U.S. occupation and then the dictatorship.

So we were set up in a way to fail because this, you know, was not meant to exist. And slave people starting their own country was not meant to exist. a lot of people have said it in stories and have said it like how dare you and I think to this day Haiti is being told how dare you in many instances when people you know when they've elected their leaders when we've elected our leaders then suddenly there's a coup or there's so I think the instability is not fully the fault of our patients I mean we've had our part where people who have decided to turn against their own, but it's also something that has been set up to fail. What did the United States get most wrong in its 1915 to 1934 occupation of Haiti?

Being there. Sure, but there's better and worse occupations, right? I don't think the people who have been occupied anywhere would ever see that they are, like, who or what a great occupation. Well, but say Barbados may have gone better than, say, some other countries in the Caribbean, its occupation? I would ask the Barbados, I mean I think you mean Grenada or? Well, Grenada also, yeah.

Say they went better than Suriname. The Dutch were more extractive in Suriname than the British were in Barbados. I think. I would ask them. I don't know. I would not speak for them. I think people always want to be in charge of their fate. And the people who come often, from what I know of the U.S. occupation, it wasn't

And, you know, the writers at that time wrote about it. You know, there were like African-American scholars who were living the moment, who visited, who wrote about it because it was meant to keep, it was meant for influence in the region. One of the heads, I think he was Butler, his name was, who wrote about, who had a Mia Culpva many years later, who was in charge of not just the occupation of Haiti, but also when at that time where there was a common occupation of Haiti and the Dior. where he said, we were there for city corps, we were there for money. That was his Mia Coppa. He was like, and so there is the example of, and you know, you've talked about Haitian art with Filomeo O'Bain, who's a Haitian artist from the north, has a very famous painting about Shalma's Perat,

who was a leader of the Kakos, who fought against the occupation, who was murdered and attached to a door for, you know, as a kind of frightening. And there were some horror stories, some massacres doing the occupation and was left behind after the occupation. I think both in Haiti and the Dominican Republic was this military structure, right,

that went through the generations. And the Dominican Republic side, it became Tohillo, who then carried out this 1937 massacre of Haitians. And then on our side, it went all the way through, down through the army that ended up in that dictatorship. And there was also sort of a deeper layering of just basically moving Jim Crow to these islands because then they had to, for the comfort of these people,

they had to kind of create these clubs, these sort of to separate people who are light versus people who are dark in terms of how they interacted with them. So it's not fun. In retrospect, do you think the U.S. Restoration of Aristide in 1994 was a mistake? Was it more colonialism? Or was it the best thing that somehow had to be done? Well, I think that was a very difficult moment at that time. Those generals in that moment, doing that coup d'etat, thousands and thousands of people had been killed. At that time, I worked, I was working on a film called Tomé Levy, and we were interviewing many people who had been

victimized during the coup d'etat. And one of them was an incredibly brave woman named Alead B'Belance, who had survived and being really butchered and I'd lost her arm and other people. And so I think at that time, I mean, the, you know, President of the United States was part of that decision and he wanted, he wanted to return. At that time, I guess, that was the right thing to do because people were really, and the generals, they were ready to stay and people were dying. And so looking back, I, you know, I think that probably was a really, that was the decision that was made in the person I was state and he returned. If you were Minister of Education in Haiti and had a fair amount of latitude, what would you do? I would give the job to a woman I know who runs an organization called ASE, PYET. And her name is Nijin.

And Nijin works with schools. Actually, she works with educators. First of all, I would make sure people who are better qualified than me were Minister of Education. But I would, one thing I think would be important to actually make sure every single child is educated and to make sure that there's education in Creole because often children just jump into school in French. And there's a lot of root memorization. So that would be an important thing, I think, to make sure every child has access to education. Because in Haiti, something like 40% of a parent's income is spent on education.

and often not the, you know, the children are not getting the best education because it's a rote memorization. But what I know is there's such a love for education in Haiti that parents really, really sacrifice a great deal to have their children educated, that every child, of course, deserves an education. So I would love for every child to have that opportunity. I think that would be the most important thing to have a good education. that could serve them and help them to function and grow in their country.

As a Haitian American, how do you feel your perspective on Black Lives Matter might be different from that of many Black Americans? It's not different. I think I believe that Black Lives Matter, of course. And I think maybe as a Haitian American with the history that I've just outlined to you, you know, with having come out of a culture of revolution and the constant fight that Hifetians have always had, we can certainly identify with that, absolutely. And one thing that's been really wonderful to see

with this generation is that as black immigrants, there's no separation, I think, maybe in previous generations, you know, there was that feeling that, oh, this is not my problem. But, you know, in the demonstrations, you see Haitian flags, you see Dominican flags, you see people from the continent. And I think because we realize that this affects all of us. It's my nephews. It's my African-American friends that I grew up with their children, my children.

It's certainly a common struggle. And certainly if that cop is not going to be asking you, which country you're from when doing these types of encounters. Now, in all of these conversations, there's a segment where I present to the guest, my favorite Haitian proverbs, and he or she reacts. Are you ready for a few? All right. So you've been sharing Haitian Proverbs with your guests?

Here's one. After the dance, the drum is heavy. What does that mean to you? Oh, my God. After Destambulu. So I actually have a book called, after the dance. It's on carnival. Yes, for me, it means that there are consequences to everything, like even, even the most joyful thing, right? Like, you have to be prepared for the

consequences of things that you've done, you know? And it's something that my mom used to say quite a bit too, like if you have just had a really big celebration or if you, you waited too to do your homework because you're having a good time watching a program you like. She was like, Abednaz, Istanbul, you know, after the dance, the drum is heavy. So there's always, it's kind of like the morning after hangover situation and the most joyful outcome, but really that there are consequences to everything. Here's another one. It is the owner of the body who looks out for the body.

Oh, this one, you will not believe how much we hear that these days. It's met co, and it's something that we see. say a lot now in the coronavirus era. And you hear it on the radio. You hear it, you know, people say when they talk to their neighbors, say med cause, kivayekov. That means that really you are the best person to take care of yourself.

Like if you want people, if you're saying wear your mask, when you go out doing the coronavirus era, wash your hand. It's like the best, the most qualified person to take care of you is you. it's not the doctor, it's not, you know, their loved one. Say Medcock vehicle. It's the honor of the body who takes care of the body. So it's like, watch out for yourself. It's very good advice these days.

When they want to kill a dog, they say it's crazy. Yep. That's that dehumanization. Just those, like if you want to, what you do, it's, I guess it's fake news. It's like, it's connected to the fake news, right? If you want to diminish or slight someone, you call them names. That's also a timely one, I think. How about this one?

The Constitution is paper. The bayonet is steel. Yes. Again, back to our conversation about dictatorship in a way. I think, I believe that one was often cited by one of the generals, actually, doing the 90s, doing the Poudita. Or it might have been even before, but it was, I think it speaks to the fragility of documents, right? Like the Constitution, I think yesterday was Constitution Day in the U.S., so that might also apply here, right?

That if it's that whole thing with freedom, right? Freedom is something that is always, like we have to always keep watching out. It doesn't slip away, right? because sometimes we think these documents or these rules or, you know, are just set in stone. And I remember, I think this general who kept saying this saying, was saying, well, you know, I have the weapons. And we can all, like with weapons, you know, paper, it's kind of paper, paper, rock scissors, and which is stronger. When the Mapu tree dies, goats would eat its leaves. Yes.

This one, I think, is about humility because we, you know, we have this expression that we say when someone has died who has contributed a great deal to our culture, to the, we say that Amapu has fallen. And Amapu is a self-cotton tree. It's a kind of sacred tree. And it's also a big tree that lasts forever. So it's a wee goal. It's just a, it's an institution, Amapu. And so what this one is saying that even, you know, it's actually the goat is a kind of meager creature compared to a Mapu. And there's no way a goat would actually be able to access the leaves to Amapu, but when it dies, it falls.

And then it's just saying that we're all, I've always heard that proverb as a way of encouraging humility that we're sort of all vulnerable to all our leaves are vulnerable. to the goat, if you will. One more proverb. Beyond the mountain is another mountain. That's a very famous one. Yes, Desaemon, gemone. And I actually use that a lot myself. You know, I have a neighbor.

One of my neighbors just passed away, and she used to use that proverb a lot. And so I think it means that no matter what, we can see there's more. I think there's more to everything than what we see. It also speaks to the physical layout of Haiti because it's a very mountainous place. You know, IT, and the Aeroa called it IT, it actually means land of the mountains. And it's physically true.

Like if you're traveling across Haiti, literally, there's always a mountain behind the, physically behind the mountain. But in a kind of spiritual sense, it also means that there's always more, you know. And you know, there's this mountain-connected saying that I love. It says, two more than I'm contrary, but we're not going to be able to contri, which means, and it's a great closer in a way. I mean, two mountains can never meet, but perhaps you and I, we can meet again. Have you ever been to West Africa?

I have not. I have only been to South Africa. And actually this year, we were hoping to make a trip to different countries in Africa, but we're obviously not able to. But I often feel like, you know, I'm 51 now. I feel like I should have already made it. But it's definitely, it's something that I've wanted to do with my family, with my girls, and that hopefully will get all to do together.

What is special about Jacques-Melle in Haiti? Jacques Mel is one thing. There's a wonderful novel by a great Haitian writer Rini di Pes called Adiana in All My Dreams, which was recently translated by Kamah Glover. And that novel will tell you everything you want to know about Jack Mel. It's sort of a, it's a beautiful place at a physically location. It's got both the mountains and the sea. It's got a wonderful, waterfall. called Bassin Bleu. It's a gorgeous place. And after the dance, the book that I wrote is about carnival and Jackman. And it has a spectacular carnival as well. And there's some wonderful artists who live there actually who I write about in after the dance. One of them, Juan Almuz, who still lives there next to a beautiful mountain there. Now, in your own life, how did you manage to be such a prodigy? So you come to the U.S., you're 12. You grew up speaking Creole, right?

By the time you're 14, you're writing for something called new youth connections, perfectly fluently, and then your first book is published as an undergraduate. So what accounts for this? What's your own story about the beginnings of your own success? My first book actually was published when I was 24. That's still early, but I loved writing. I love stories. and I loved writing. And for me, it was always fun.

And even when I was doing other things, I was studying at school, but I loved to write. And so, you know, it's that saying that people say, if you love what you do, you've never worked a day in your life. For me, that was just really I wanted to write. And it started with New York Connection, that journal that I started writing for when I was 14. and went through all my books to this day.

I never saw myself so much as, I mean, I knew that my book was published early, and a lot was made of that, I think, as when you publish when you're young. But for me, it was just always a joy. It was something I love doing, and I always felt like really blessed to be able to do it. And I still feel that way today. What's your most productive or most unusual work habit? working at night and the older I'm getting, the harder it is to actually stay up all night, but I find that writing at night is really my most productive time.

Because somehow at night, you just feel like everybody's safe and bad that I'm responsible for. And there's not too many distractions. The internet is always there, but it's just easier to imagine a whole other universe at night. So I feel that that's when I'm most productive. Being a Haitian-American writer, what criticisms do you feel you get from Haitians? Is there any tension there? I think there's always attentions,

but not so much because of the people who read me. I think it's the same when you come. And I have friends from other groups, it's the same. So you seem to be plucked out of your group, And people think like you consider yourself a representative. I've never considered myself a representative for Haitians, all Haitians. I don't think I speak for all Haitians. But often in the, you know, when you're spoken about in the press, like people put you as a kind of sociologist as a kind of patient expert on Haiti.

When I started pretty young and I really, it was like, I just want to tell this story. I want to tell that story. And then I started to realize that people were at times overgeneralizing my stories, right? like that they would say, oh, this character in your book does that, and that's what all Haitians do. So, of course, some of my compatriots didn't like that because they would say, you know, people would literally say to me like, oh, that person read your book and said that, like, they think that's my life too. So I think, and that happens, I think, with the work of writers of color a lot, you know,

for example, Alice Walker, that people say, oh, because she writes this character, then she hates black man or because, you know, that for me, they were saying, oh, because, you wrote about this girl whose family really wanted to be a virgin, that means like, you know, everybody who's Haitian has the same situation. I think the people in the mainstream culture sometimes generalize what we write. And so that leads to some tensions within the culture. But I've had, you know, I've had some rebuke, which is normal again. You know, it's kind of like there are circumstances to whatever you write, whatever you do.

I learned from that, and I have to, I started out very young, so I think over the years I've also had to learn and how to tell maybe more nuanced stories and how to be conscious of just how what I write will be read by different types of people. Now, you've taught a history of Haitian cinema class at Ramapo College, correct? What did you do in that? Well, actually, we taught that class. It was Jonathan Demi and a Haitian journalist, John Dominique. And when Jean was in exile from Haiti, Jonathan wanted to do actually a festival of Haitian cinema. And we used that class as a way of, first of all, finding the films that we would show and then to talk about them.

So there's a Haitian film, for example, called Anita, which is about a young girl who's a domestic servant in a home. who Haitian singer T-Corn is featured in it. And so we would get that film, we would show it, and we'd talk about it, and Jean-Hu was more versed in Haitian cinema than neither of us would speak on it, and then the students would film it. So I hope all of this is in the archives at Ramapo College.

But it was both a history of cinema class, but also a class one which the students had an opportunity to film what we were doing. And we were trying to figure what had been done in Haitian cinema before. And soon after that, not because of us, but there was a kind of explosion of Haitian cinema. You know, there were a lot of films made, some of them wonderful, some not so great. But there were a couple of keepers, you know, that like if we were doing this project now,

for example, we would have a lot more to work with, you know, with the films of Lahu Peck and other. filmmakers inside Haiti. Two final questions. First, let's say our listeners are thinking of doing a trip to Haiti, which, by the way, I would recommend strongly. But what tip would you give them for how they can make it somehow manageable and safe, assuming, of course, they're not Haitian? Well, a lot of people, you know, go to Haiti.

And I think you have to go with an open mind, right? and I would say try to get out of Port-au-Purons to go outside, go see the countryside. There are, for example, in the south, there's some wonderful grottos or caves, there's some hikes. I think there's not to try to stay in the urban space, but also to go outside. There's, I think it's Palmer's guide to both Haiti and the Dominican Republic that has some wonderful tips in terms of order to go. And there's some also local traveling groups. Like try to, you've never been to Haiti and you don't know anybody in Haiti to try to find the group to accompany you. But to go with an open mind to try to learn and listen and certainly go outside the urban space into the countryside,

I would recommend that. And to close, finally, if you could give us one more Haitian proverb, is dear and important to you. Well, this one reminds me very much of Jonathan, who, though he was not Haitian, I probably traveled with him more to Haiti than my own parents when I worked for him. And he always used to say ptipitizu-fanish, little by little, the bird builds its nest. That was his favorite answer to, like, if you're asking how he was doing, He would say Ptipti-Ptizuazofanish. Unfortunately, as you know, he passed away not so long ago,

and that was one of his favorites, and that remains very special to me for that reason, but also what the proverb says. It's really, it's kind of like that, like every journey begins with one step. And so I feel like it's good advice these days to Ptiptizuizuizu-Fenish, little by little, the bird built its nest. Edwich Dantika, thank you very much.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to Conversations with Tyler. You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. And if you like this podcast, please consider rating it on iTunes and leaving a review. This helps other people find the show.