Edwidge Danticat on Haitian Art and Literature
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2020
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
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
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, |
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| 0:12.6 | Learn more at mercatis.org. |
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| 0:20.4 | ConversationsWithT Tyler.com. |
| 0:26.6 | Hello, everyone. Welcome again to ConversationsWithT Tyler. |
| 0:30.3 | Today I am very pleased to be chatting with Edwidge Dantika, the famed Haitian American author, |
| 0:36.5 | Edwidge. Thank you for coming on the show. |
| 0:38.9 | Oh, thank you so much for having me. |
| 0:41.0 | I have so many questions. Let's start with one about you. |
| 0:44.8 | Now you move to the United States from Haiti, I believe, when you were 12. |
| 0:49.2 | How is it you have learned so much about Haitian history in the meantime since you didn't |
| 0:53.7 | do most of your schooling in Haiti? |
| 0:55.7 | Well, I often say that, you know, and my parents just to say it as well, that I left Haiti, |
| 1:02.3 | but Haiti didn't leave me. |
| 1:04.0 | And 12 is, I think, young enough to transition somewhere to Italy, but also to have formed |
| 1:12.8 | so many memories and to have actually had a big chunk of primary education in Haiti |
| 1:19.3 | and having learned both oral history and written history. |
| 1:24.6 | So I brought a lot of that with me to the US and enough that I was curious when I got |
| 1:31.7 | here to find out more from this side of things. |
| 1:35.5 | So I think it was in part a love for Haiti that continued and also a curiosity about history |
| 1:43.1 | in general, but Haitian history in particular. |
... |
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