It was an honor to interview Edwidge Danticat, one of my favorite writers on death, dying, and grief about her early losses and what she is trying to achieve in her work. We spoke about her new book "We're Alone," a collection of essays about her life as a writer straddling her life as a Haitian immigrant with strong ties to her home country. I also asked about some of her earliest books ("Breath, Eyes, Memory," "Brother, I'm Dying," and "Krik? Krak!") because she has written so beautifully about death and loss, both through the eyes of a child but also throughout adulthood. Having been separated from her parents for eight years at the age of four, she has written extensively about the particular experience of loss due to displacement and how that early loss echoes through her later losses of her parents. We discussed the contrast between the ever-changing mourning rituals in Haiti and in the U.S., and how younger generations are adapting traditional practices to suit their needs. We also talked about Christina Sharpe's book "In the Wake: On Blackness and Being" and how she and Danticat have both tried to address the magnitude of Black grief in their work.
(photo of the author by Lynn Savarese)
Edwidge Danticat