Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:06 You're listening to writing home American voices from the Caribbean, with Kiama Glover and Tammy Navarro
Speaker 1 00:00:22 Closely followed the investigation or lack of it. It was like all police investigations in Haiti. At first, it was all everyone was talking about. Then it went cold. And then for years, whenever it came up, everyone from the chief of police to journalism, students would say, Luquette super sweet. The investigation continues even though it had not after those deaths and others, Louise had considered changing the format of the show from one that allowed people to air personal grievances to one that pursued justice. She thought of renaming the show, say, yeah, Tim, the Latin word for series, she'd also considered verboten or word for word or the legal term that combined both, but she did not want the station's core audience of playing and regular people to be, be put off hearing Latin once or twice a week at mass was probably all they could bear. So now she found herself doing only confessionals, but sometimes accusatory interviews. The is very large audience, favorite gossipy subjects over to crime, unless there were elements of gossips in the crime. She liked to start the hour by welcoming her guests with the words deem way, tell me she would see deem way. Tell me we're ready to hear your story.
Speaker 2 00:01:52 That voice you just heard was in each Donte Cod, who we had the great pleasure of hosting at Caribbean critical feminism's on the page way back in 2015.
Speaker 3 00:02:03 Yes. That was one of our earliest Caribbean feminism's conversations. And I'm thrilled that we get to chance to talk with her again.
Speaker 2 00:02:11 So yes, let us get started. Uh, my name is Kiama Glover
Speaker 3 00:02:15 And I'm Tammy Navarro. Welcome to writing home American voices from the Caribbean. Our guest today is ed reached Antica author of a number of books. There are so many in fact that I have the great pleasure of just listing my favorites. So those are breath, eyes, memory Crick, crack the farming of bones. The Dew breaker create dangerously Clare of the sea light and everything inside. She's a winner of the national book critics circle award for autobiography MacArthur fellow and has been a fellow at the Ford foundation. Welcome and Reed,
Speaker 2 00:02:52 Welcome to writing home. We're so happy to have you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I thought after that, that Cleveland, we're going to see de Moines so much cooler. Can we start again where it shows that we're not professional podcasts, we're winging it. Okay. Missed opportunity number. Um, we are going to start there. That was the end to the reading that you did at Barnard college, which was just such a marvelous experience for everyone. And I thought that the passage you chose. So this was a passage, it was told through the voice meaning of Louise, this character who has a radio show. So even more apropos to what we're doing here and who is talking about, well, what I kind of distilled as the connection between storytelling and justice. And I, I know there's a part of every writer in every story, but I couldn't help.
Speaker 2 00:03:51 But leap from that story you told to the work that you do in the world. And, and I'll be even more specific. I think I might've talked to you a little bit about this before. Um, but I was very taken and moved by that incident back a few years ago around the time of the earthquake, when you really took up the question of who has the right to tell whose story is when it comes to justice in your defense and this kind of conversation you were having with Mac McClellan in the pages of essence magazine, it's especially about the sort of usurping of the story of the Haitian rape survivor, who had asked explicitly that this white Western woman reporter not tell her story to the wider world and that those, those, that desire had been ignored. And you, you talked, um, in essence and elsewhere about this question of legitimacy, who gets to tell whose stories.
Speaker 2 00:04:44 And so not only about kind of, I think, um, bringing justice through storytelling, also storytelling itself, it's having to think ethically in terms of justice. So I'm hoping you can elaborate maybe a little bit on that and talk to us about this question of storytelling and justice. Well, I mean, that's, uh, that situation was a moment where really the two came together because right after the earthquake, many people had, you know, were to Haiti and looking for a story. And that's, that's part of the job of a journalist everywhere. You know, we all show up in places it's not our everyday place, so we're sort of learning to live and land. But also a lot of other people had gone who worked with organizations and, and I had met many of the women on the ground who I had known for many years. Some of them had had their work, their life story featured in a book called walking on fire that Beverly Bell editor that I've met them that way.
Speaker 2 00:05:48 And so there's a, you know, Haiti is small in the sense that if you talk about one person seeking for justice, that, that the person that was being talked about a lot, so many people had come in contact with and she had very specific wishes. And so when that was, you know, when her story was published, tangentially in another person's story, you know, a lot of people then were talking about it and she was talking about it to some of us. So I thought this was an opportunity not to come out to anybody, but to just also have this conversation, right, that, that the person who was being talked about, you know, had not fully invited herself into she, you know, and, and this thing was going around the world. So I think I wasn't the only one who talks about it, but I think one of the things that week when it was happening, when talking to the young woman, one of the things that she said that I think combines the sense of voice <inaudible>, it's like a really fierce weed and hating you there's there's songs about it.
Speaker 2 00:07:00 And I, and I think that's one of the ways that you can stay right, is to have a voice and not all of us are heard in the same way. And that's what I, in that passage, that's what I love about radio, right? I always feel like Asians are doing podcasts before people are doing podcasts, because radio is such a big part of, of, of our lives. And if you love a program, you, you know, you put it on a cassette, you shared it. And so I thought that, you know, not we were in a new territory in which you don't really, you know, you can't control how your story goes around the world, right? None of us have that, that luxury really, but it's, you, you, you want to be, you know, as this young woman and, and all these women, they wanted to at least have their version of these stories heard just as in Louise's program, teen boy.
Speaker 2 00:07:54 And so do you feel then, I mean, is that something that I realized, this is a leading question, and it's something that, again, we've talked about in the context of breath, eyes, memory, and the afterward that you ended up writing to that novel four years after its original pub publication. Right. You just mentioned that point, you know, not all stories are heard in the same way or to the same extent. Right. But, but you're a storyteller who has the possibility to somewhat control the narrative around the stories you tell, right? You, you travel physically around the world, you know, and you intend for your stories to travel widely. So I'm just wondering again, in this question of justice, do you feel a burden of responsibility or, yeah. I'll just say responsibility that comes with this kind of storytelling and your platform. Yeah. Well, I remember, I remember we've talked about this before and I know you're, I know you're I know you're not, I know you don't approve.
Speaker 2 00:09:01 I mean, I wouldn't put it like that, but yes, absolutely. No, I, and I, and I appreciate it that I thought that was really, uh, when we had that conversation the first 10 times, uh, I really appreciated that because I, um, I did feel a little bit, like I had to write it because, you know, it was becoming, so it kept coming back. And I, and I think we've talked about that there, I did one of my first events with my school day and then, and I was like 24 and my niece was, and, and, you know, and, and people, and I remember someone who had just read one of her books was so upset, like in the book was old. I mean, it was like first books. And frankly, when I was reading that, I thought, I don't want to be like 70 and have this conversation.
Speaker 2 00:10:06 My first book, because someone who just read it to whom it's brand new will have this anchor still, you know, I just kind of wanted to just have my point of view on that particular subject. And I had an opportunity, they were doing a new edition and really that more than anything affected, affected sort of my wanting to write it because a lot of people were upset about it. And, you know, and, and eventually like a monetizing, some, you know, some fake lore that I had created, it was, it got pretty sort of mean in the beginning where people, and I agree where people like we are, you know, we're stigmatized enough, enough, bad things are said about us, and now you're adding another layer of something. And so that's really why I wanted to write it. And I wrote it. I've decided to add it right before the book was going to be on Oprah's book club.
Speaker 2 00:10:57 So we're going to have this much wider audience. I thought this was the time to kind of just like say to people. Yes. You know, this is where fiction is. We write about really exceptionally different people. Like people, you're not, you know, this person is going to have a kind of unique experience because that's why you chose to write a novel about them. And so for me, that's really in part, I really wanted to go on the record as sort of what, what I was thinking and writing the story. And I wanted it to be attached now to the book for, for newer readers, because now even I'm thinking down the generations, now the book is, you know, from 94, it's a lot of years old. And I know there are young people who are gonna read it, even though they're, Haitian-American, they'll read it as some kind of artifact, right. This is not, this is going to be like their mother or their grandmother's story. So I really wanted to contextualize it for all of those reasons. Oh my gosh. I'm so glad I asked, because again, because this is new information, the backstory with my niece's situation and like your, your long vision of what the artifact of your novel is something I hadn't heard you talk about before. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 3 00:12:18 We want to go back to our long ago conversation when we were in person at Barnard and just follow up on that question of, uh, Kiama pointed out your lack of happy endings. I think eloquently defended as your, your version of happy endings,
Speaker 2 00:12:36 Making it sound like I'm constantly fighting.
Speaker 3 00:12:46 No, I think it's a perfect time to talk with you because you have this gift as a writer of, of walking us through extreme loss, extreme pain, and, and still, it's a beautiful, you present us with a beautiful journey right. In each of these works. And this is a moment of such deep loss and pain for so many. I mean, your writing has demonstrated again, your ability to sort of speak to a moment like this. I'm thinking of your writing in the New York review on morning, where you talk about the passing of your neighbor, or even your contribution to the New York times, the Decameron project. And Cominos, I'm in the middle of rereading the Decameron right now, just looking for ways to be in this moment. And so I guess I just wanted to hear you reflect on that. That's what I take away as a reader of your work, your sort of facility, your long history of taking impossible situations and rendering them beautiful in their fullness. And I see you making gestures towards doing that with COVID and the loss, the large-scale loss that we're experiencing. And I guess I just wanted to hear you talk about how, how you're living, that, how you're writing that.
Speaker 2 00:13:52 Um, well, thank you. You know, when I was, after my mom passed away and I started writing the art of death, it brought me into kind of some, really some readings that I needed at that moment in order to mourn and other to grieve in order to move on. And then even in that, I had all, I had the luxury. Now it seems of all the rituals, right. I got to be with my mother. I was holding her hand as she, as she was passing away. And, you know, we had people come over to, to feed us, to, to sit with us that night. And, you know, and so my mother had a funeral, you know, all her friends attended just the way, you know, with all her instructions. And I was thinking, you know, when my neighbor died in other people, my parents, friends in New York, you know, many have passed on and, and I have watched, and I participated in so many zoom or Facebook funerals now that, you know, before my brothers used to in a very, you know, kind of old school, Caribbean fashion, if I, if someone from my parents' church or one of their close friends died and I couldn't go to New York, they would see we represented the family.
Speaker 2 00:15:07 Right. And so I'm sitting on the zoom, representing the family on the zoom, and there's a hollowness to it, right? Like that, even when my neighbors, I, that you, you're not able to touch, you're not able to visit. And so I was thinking, doing this whole process, that the lack of rituals. Right. And, and it seemed like, so how much more important, you know, more important than I even realized, because we take rituals for granted, you know, like how, how much that's a part of what also we're lacking in this, in this moment. Right. Not being able to even touch one another. So I wanted to record that and write about that. You know, so mostly the last couple of months, you know, since we've been in, you know, since last March, about a year, I've mostly been writing nonfiction, except for that one. Um, the one thing that piece on the Dick Cameron project, but everything else at the nonfiction, because I really wanted to document for myself what this moment has been like, because things move so quickly that I feel like 10 years for.
Speaker 2 00:16:13 I, you know, it's kind of like after you, after childbirth, right. You're sure, like, you think you're gonna remember everything as the children grow. And then next thing you're like, oh one after that seven months. And so I thought this is going to be one where I really want to look back and, and read some things. I read how I was feeling. I have journals, of course, but also I have at least these moments that I was able to share with other people about that. But, you know, in terms of, I, I, one of the things also of being in this moment and being now 52, I think, you know, to myself, I was looking over, you know, the, a talk that I had done around the art of death. And I, and I called myself in that, like, I felt like I was kind of a, a serial killer of my characters.
Speaker 2 00:17:00 Right. And as I get older, I do, I am starting to think of the value, you know, like, um, Toni Morrison has that lecture on the goodness and the literary imagination. And she talks about how much harder it is to do, to write about good people. Then, you know, then then evil and, you know, she's done her share. God knows. And I saw that as thing of reflecting back and also too, to think about maybe going forward in terms of art that reflects like what, what we could be right. Rather than, than then, and all the pain was suffered because I've also been bingeing like Bridgehampton and shit's Creek, I think, like unlike together and, and then to see, like, what, what, what can we do, where do we remove certain types of obstacles? Right. And, um, it's kind of getting back to Morrison where she was saying, like, to think of all the energy, right. Fighting racism, fighting these obstacles. And so, I mean, I am also thinking not about happier endings, but just thinking of just like, maybe it's because there's been so much, you know, pain in this moment, like, what would, what would goodness be like, what would joy more joy be like? Right. Like as, as in the forefront of, of a work. So that's something that I'm sort of thinking about right now in the, in the moment in this moment is answers are so long,
Speaker 3 00:18:35 Actually, it's beautiful. And it's, it's really useful to think about an aspirational model because there is reality, which is at this moment, difficult to endure for so many. And then there is, yeah. The acceptance of that, and then not even escapism, but just a more aspirational model, which I think there's so many of us seeking joy, um, wherever we can create it, not just find it, but create it. And so that is a power. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:19:01 There was also, uh, if I'm remembering correctly, I think it's an art of death where you say the literature thrives on suffering. And it's interesting to hear you say here, the ways in which sort of letting yourself fully experienced that suffering has also been generative taking you in a direction in the direction of non-fiction perhaps primarily, but also seemingly had this kind of curing or, or nourishing effect at a time as Tammy points out, that's particularly bleak. So you, you have now you've mentioned too, I guess we can call them to some extent literary ancestors of yours. Right. So money's comb day first and now you've twice mentioned Tony Morrison. And so hearing you do that, but piggybacking on what you said earlier about imagining like 70 years from now, when someone, perhaps a writer, perhaps a woman, perhaps a Caribbean origin is reading your work if more than one day and others are your ancestors, who might you say, contemporarily and literature, who, your daughters, who you are, who are your descendants looking at the literary landscape right now curious? Well, I mean, there's so many really wonderful younger writers, but I'm not gonna, I won't see anybody's my daughter or descendant because they might, that might offend them. You know what I read?
Speaker 2 00:20:23 I think we have to be careful in that lens, in that because people, you know, there's no ring to kiss. I want to sit down and present to my, because I think the, the, the back and forth is so powerful where you also learn from, from what's ahead and, and, and the way, and the plan, the, but there's, you know, I mean, I, when I was starting, it just was, you know, we had the giants, right. That we read Alice Walker. And I remember Jamaica, Kincaid. I think I mentioned that she was one of the first writers I saw in person. Actually, she came to Barnard and all that fabulous messages. It's like, I was like, Ooh, this is such an amazingly new vision of what, like she brought, I think she had blonde hair, she brought it and also that great experience of seeing writers and in person, but for now there's so, you know, there's, I'll just say maybe folks, maybe folks have not heard of here.
Speaker 2 00:21:31 Those who, uh, who has written a really incredible novel and the dictatorship is Lee's, who I think has done one of these Caribbean feminism conversations with Roxanne gay, who is also on fire at the new Yorker there's during Sandy leagues. Uh, let's say Felix, and there's just, I mean, more that I'm also not, you know, remembering on the other side of the, is NG Cruz, Nellie was Daddy-O who wrote an amazing first novel Andrew's working on another, you know, I'm probably hanging out with so many others, but there, there there's this, I mean, there, I think in part also due to, uh, caching books has done so much in the sense of bringing the Caribbean to us until the next generation, both in the Caribbean and here, and these, um, in these books, you know, the series, you know, there's so many, like other ways that I think people here, you could sample some like, <inaudible> right.
Speaker 2 00:22:38 You can sample writers like across. I, I think there's so many wonderful people making their way, um, that it's, it's, it's really inspiring. It's, it's great to see. And, and it's more in a way, you know, we have a few more editors of color. I mean, there could be so many more, but then we had, when I was starting out and they're now people think fully, maybe as a result of, of what's happened this summer who had made declarations, right. That they now have to keep, who are looking for different forces on voices. I, I didn't mention EPS. The boy who actually writes in and Yan is also, you know, there's this pride, which is her, the writing of pride and prejudice American street, Debbie who's also writing Yia. So this could be the whole interview.
Speaker 2 00:23:34 It was really just a trick question because I was trying to get names. Can I hope you're taking notes for the podcast? So you just did like half of our reconnaissance work-wise, but no, I appreciate your saying that it's not about kissing the ring and I didn't want to imply that it was more, I was just curious who you saw as maybe grappling with some of the questions that you have been over the course of your career, but people who are just starting out or struggling with the same things. So thank you. Yeah. And I think also it's, it's now you, you end up having sort of your group of people that you encounter over the years. So like Terry Jones is, is a person she's at we're. I think I'm a little bit older than him, but we talk about this all the time too, about, because there are very few people kind of knew from the old times and, and watching, watching now, I think people have, you know, they have more community online and that's also a new element to it that, that wasn't available to us. So it seems a little more public the wrestling because there there's, you know, they, they, they can do it on social media and people find each other that way right across the country, across the world, really, which is nice.
Speaker 3 00:24:51 You just said about this kind of introduction of the virtual in, in informing community. It makes me realize, I wanted to ask you a question about conditions of writing, because I remember your generosity when you were with us in person, you hosted a lunch, you spoke at a lunch for some students that we had selected, and you talked with them. And one of the things you talked about was writing your first novel, and I think you worked in the registrar's office or something, right. And you shared this, this remembrance with them of staying late and trying to write, um, you know, cause you had finished work for the day and what that experience was like, and sort of just reaching out to them for some of them who were trying to write their first books at that time as well. And those kinds of particular conditions of writing. I'm wondering about now, when everything has been moved into one centralized space, right. With family and community, I know you have children as well in the home. Just what your experiences of writing right now, what your conditions of writing are and what that has either produced for you or how it has affected what you're able to write in this moment.
Speaker 2 00:25:59 Well, initially it was very hard for me to do any writing at all. I think people were calling and saying, oh my goodness, you're, you're you're home. You're not traveling. You must've written 10 books by now. Like literally I had relatives who say that to me. But part of it was, I was so anxious. I'm still very anxious, right? You're worried about family members. And then there was that whole period where you would just hear that this person had passed away and this other person that passed to her. So, so for me, the only way I could really, the only writing I was doing was really trying to engage with what's happening around me. And non-fiction, I have an idea. I had begun writing a novel, but there's something about just when all of this is happening in the world and not to mention all the, you know, the, the, the George Ford protest in the summer.
Speaker 2 00:26:52 And, and then all of the, like this election, that it was just hard to kind of block it all out in, in write fiction, which felt a little bit, you know, kind of futile in the moment, except for that one piece. Like, it felt like, like, oh, I'm going to sit and make up something. I mean, I'm sure if I were in the mindset, I could have done it, but I could manage it. And also I had the, you know, my two daughters at home with the homeschooling, you know, and becoming that parent where like, you can not be late for homeschool, like on their computer. That's a 10, not embarrassing.
Speaker 2 00:27:42 I'm going to be like that, that lunch is what I was managing most days. And so, but I've given myself, for example, I said to myself in February, February 1st, I'm going to go back to my, to my fiction because we're also in this moment where a show like this thing may be like last longer, you know, it was two weeks to slow the spread. So I said, at least I might as well get back to that because now we've sort of settled into some routines, but it was, it was really hard to really focus on what had always felt into my immigrant mind, like already kind of a luxurious activity. Right. And also felt, I mean, I flipped frankly, super exposed when we were all in the house and, you know, I wasn't, I felt like my children realized that I was just like, a lot of my writing was like walking around the house a lot has been lifted and it's not right.
Speaker 2 00:28:53 And I don't have like a closed door really, so they could see me like freaking out, like, and so I I've gone back electric writing at night, which I was just bad for my health at my age. So I have to kind of really manage like more sleep and all of that. But it's, you know, it does take like when you, people are dealing with such really urgent issues, it does take a bit of a backseat. And I've been the things actually that I have managed to write. I have, because someone was like, can you write about this? And I, and I gave them some, you know, to me as assignments and they had deadlines and that, that in a way allowed me to be like that level of productive, because someone was waiting for those things February one, you're going to get that to your fiction. And you get back to as if it's like, they're waiting for you.
Speaker 2 00:29:45 I'm so curious then to know, is there sort of, is there, is there some character or some moment that you are that you're ready to come to, or when you say get back to that is to just get yourself back in the space where the muses can come or where that character might feel welcome? Oh, no. I had started working on a novel, like November, 2019 and I had, and I was writing in notebooks and I do, uh, I was doing some research when I do re like, I usually start with the notebook, like longhand. So I had started, I was maybe like maybe 5% in, I didn't know where it was fully going, hard to continue with, like with so much uncertainty, right. When it's like, fucking self is uncertain. Maybe if I were at a certain point, like a little bit more who are clearer for me.
Speaker 2 00:30:40 So I think going back to me now means like, being able to deal with different levels of uncertainty, right. Both in the work and also in this life. Right. Like, you know, my youngest, for example, now is in person on her school. Like, I'm thinking, how long will that last, how long? And then, you know, we're trying it for the week and see how psychopaths, it's very hard for me to have, like also, like what's going to happen to this character. I'm like, what's happening with COVID here or what's happening with the new strain. And I'm not, I've realized in this moment of being like a mother full time or a writer, like everything, I am full-time in the same space. I realized that it's like, I have been compartmentalizing in a way that you can't when you're home. Right. Look at your little, one's walking through the door, passing, you know, like my oldest is not walking by.
Speaker 2 00:31:39 So, I mean, it's kind of like, it's all, like everything we are is merged and is under one roof. So there is this that, you know, it's hard to, then it's like, okay, I'm going to steal away now to, to figure out what's going to happen. It's like, I just never had that level from the time that we've been all here together. I've not had that level of like, clarity to do that, but I'm going to, I feel, because I don't know when this will end, frankly. Right. None of us do. So I feel like, okay, I'm ready to, we have groceries, we have this thing. I'm ready to just go back with that uncertainty. And then now deal with like these, these different levels of uncertainty, both in the, with the characters in my real life. And what'd you say about compartmentalization? It's like, we all here on this call right now, we know like compartmentalization is a matter of survival.
Speaker 2 00:32:36 If you have a job that has sort some measure of flexibility in how the hours or how you organize your life. Right. And rely on, on something that as you say, is, has just become absolutely impossible in this moment and potentially for the foreseeable future. So yeah, now it all kind of leads into one another in a way that it didn't before. Right. It kind of, it all merges somewhat. Um, more thing to ask you and if it's about your daughters sort of, um, but really more about, I mean, the show is called writing home. So, um, I'm thinking that we've thought of riding home, Tammy and I were like writing home as in home, in the Caribbean versus home in the U S but you know, now we're talking about, we're all sitting at home, like literally as we speak right now, writing, working, try not to go crazy at home.
Speaker 2 00:33:35 And, and so I just wanted to ask, especially with this question of genre, you're writing non-fiction now, but you just, before nonfiction, you would come back after something of a hiatus to the short story. If you could just talk for a second about your imagined community of readers, readers, perhaps certainly in Haiti, but now thinking about in your home, like, do your girls read your work and if so, what do they read and what do they think about what mama puts out into the world? Well, so my youngest, whenever I kind of wrote something I had written, she was like, but they, they had actually, I own this read one of my middle grade novels behind the mountains when she was in third grade in her with her class. And I went in and talked to the class. So that's the, that's the closest they've come to meeting it.
Speaker 2 00:34:31 They thus far have in mommy medicine, like the picture books, when we they've read, I've read them. And actually they've helped me with, um, critique on the picture books. Like, you know, no kid talks like that kind of reaction and that's helped a lot actual kid consultants, but they have really no desire. Like I have a, my oldest daughter had the friend who has read untwine and always wants to talk about it. And my, my daughter has no desire to read it, I think, because also they see, you know, how the sausage is made, so to speak. I think they, and I talked to them about it, like as I go and at some point I think for me, but sometimes they'll go in, they'll read like my good reads and they'll say, oh, like they'll share. They think it's, they think it's more interesting when, for example, people don't like the book, then why does that feel? Um, surprising object.
Speaker 2 00:35:36 But I think, I think that's, that's really fine with me. Like, I'd rather, I rather like be read it separate from me in a way. And, and I think just the way it's going, I think in the foreseeable future, and maybe, you know, I always have this romantic vision. It's like a movie, like at some point in the movie at the end, the daughter goes to the bookshelf picks of the mother's book when they're separated, you know, and then just like, oh, my mother was so smart. Let it go script. I've written for myself, but it's actually, it makes more sense for me, for them to, I mean, I would feel the same way I would be like, oh, if I have enough of my mother, 24 hours a day, why do I need more of her in my head? Right.
Speaker 2 00:36:30 And do you have a sense that folks at, at home home at the original home read your work? I just taught this book salon type thing, Haitian fiction, and of the, all the writers I taught every time I ask, oh, have you read anything by this author for the first authors? People hadn't read anything, but it'd be to, oh, it'd be done to God. Yeah. Read, I didn't know. And this was a pretty diverse group. So these were Haitian Americans, you know, non Haitian Americans, older, younger, but they were all very familiar with edgy or thought they were with <inaudible>. So I wonder if you have a sense of your community or readers outside the U S and specifically in the Caribbean, and even more specifically in gaming. I think, you know, one of the things that I've tried to do with, uh, some of the translations, like, and you've done such an extraordinary service in this way, with all your translations, right.
Speaker 2 00:37:19 Of patient literature. And from the beginning, when I was starting, that's one of the things I wanted to do to have, for example, these books available, or these writers, the writers in Haiti available daughters, when they choose to pick up these books into my nieces and nephew, to know, to have the literature available to them in this way at home, you know, some of the very beginning of my time being published, I would go back to Haiti, to conferences. And initially, you know, it was a kind of debate about who belongs in Haitian literature, right? Like they work for as in English. And there was which names you said, who writes in Spanish, the two of us were always brought up in a way, but then I started going back actually more informally. Like if you go talk to students in schools, they may not have heard of, of me, but you can share this story.
Speaker 2 00:38:17 Right. Like there's, I mean, I think people might, I don't know. I can't really say how, if I'm read widely or not both, but if I, you know, when I go, I talk to young people, the books are there. And I remember going my best experience meeting readers in 80 was that the lever right where you are there for basically a day and talking to leaders there. And so many people came through, like my neighbors from when I was a kid and like from young people in school, and they'd made like really cheaper editions that per book or that, that sold there, that was a wonderful experience. And so that's like the Mo the most tactile, you know, going to speak to young people at the libraries going in, or doing some workshops in some schools that to me is, is sort of the more tangible experience that I have of that.
Speaker 2 00:39:09 But reading, I mean, the accessibility of books to the wider population in Haiti also, it's not very easy for everybody to get a book in the first place. So often maybe people might know of a writer, right. As a person, but they may not have access to all the books. Right. And so, so it's hard to gauge, but I I'll tell you one time I did a workshop with some young people, not, it was like the 20th anniversary of poke out of the organization. So they, we did a work toward like a library and Mazzi song and the, the funniest example. And I have this thing, so the kids had read a Clair of the sea life that, that, except this problem. And one kid, you know, just raised his hand. He's like, you know what? You all, I'm so tired of you writing this stuff, just write Harry Potter already, or something like to write some fantasy, you know, it's kind of like the range.
Speaker 2 00:40:16 Like I was like in that, in that kid's mind, there was like a whole range of radiation. Literature could be, we wanted some fantasy with which, like, you'd be writing, like you'd be supported, like is writing here too. And so, so I thought it was like, this is really, I love that, that there's like, there's this expectation of a range, which when I was starting out, it didn't feel like that was a possibility. Like, I didn't, it didn't feel like I would have been welcomed into any kind of club with my, you know, with that. Like if I were writing that, you know, other than what I, you know, in a particular way. So I, you know, I thought that's, that's the kind of, for me, that's like these, these encounters I love to have with like young leaders in Haiti, because they're also, they're in my encounters with them. They're also not shy to say things like, thank you, gave you an assignment. Didn't you say you like assignments.
Speaker 2 00:41:15 And then also I was thinking about, I was like, yeah, we do have like, such like incredible mythology. Right. But it was like, wow, that kid is so smart. And I hope that the key keyword, right. I think we are at time and you've given us, I mean, food for thought doesn't begin to take on it. But, um, thank you. Thank you so much for the old revisited and for the new idea shared, thank you for having me. Thanks. Wonderful. And I hope to see you all in person. I partnered at some point soon, right? Soon as we can get you back, we'll put our efforts towards that. Absolutely
Speaker 0 00:42:05 Writing home is produced by Kiama Glover, Tammy Navarro, Rachel James and Miriam Neptune support for this podcast comes from the digital humanities center, the center for research on women, the media center and the library at Barnard college. Our music is by <inaudible> from their album D D Jones. And the track is to be last year.
