Discover Haiti: Literature-Dany Laferrière

[Books by Dany Laferriere]

A lot could be said about writer Dany Laferriere, the author of "Comment faire l'amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer". A lot could be said about his talent as a writer or about the incredible wit of his lines. DiscoverHaiti decided not to follow that route since often the words of the subjects are more accurate than that of the reporter. Hence, in interviewing Dany Laferriere, DiscoverHaiti was interested in uncovering the writer, the man as well as his work in his own words. Of course, an interview is too short to encompass the complexity of any man and least of all Dany Laferriere. We, however, hope that this bit will enlighten our readers on one of the funniest and most intelligent American writers of today. Read on

DiscoverHaiti: You emerged on the literature scene in Canada with a quite shocking title "How to make love to a Negro." What has motivated this title?

DanyLaferriere: I did not come up with this title to stir up controversies. This is just my style. Actually the original title in French is "Comment faire L'amour avec un negre sans se fatiguer." My editor in Toronto disapproved of the title. When the movie came out in the United States in the nineties, all the American newspapers (the NY Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Herald) also criticized the title. This title was as shocking to blacks as it was for whites. But it also made a lot of people laugh; this book has been translated under the same title in tens of languages. The Dutch translation was the funniest: "How to make love to a Negro without becoming black." I chose this title because it suits the content of the book. I felt closer to rap culture than to classical literature.

DH: It is interesting that although your success was immediate as a writer,
you waited around ten years after immigrating to Canada to publish a book.
What caused this delay? In what ways were these years beneficial to your
growth as a writer?

DL: During these years, I worked as a factory worker to support myself. It was important for me to escape my upbringing. I was from a middle class family. My father was a journalist, diplomat, and later became a mayor of Port-au-Prince; my mother was an archivist. I studied at Canado-Haitien, a prestigious school. Thus, working as a factory worker was a deviation from my background. I wasn't happy working so hard in what were arduous conditions but I knew that this experience would help me become a writer. I wanted to talk about things that had happened to me. Everyday life stories. I did not view literature as a dream. Book How to make love to a negro

DH: In describing your childhood in Haiti, torn between Creole (a language you
spoke without thinking) and French (a language you had to learn in school to
become "civilize") and finally the indigenist movement, which proclaimed a return to Creole and the soul of Haitian culture (that is everything non French), you ultimately decided as a young Haitian living in Canada to become an "American writer writing directly in French." Is there a contradiction between being an American writer of French expression or was your choice a return to a fundamental independent identity?

DL: Too much importance has been given to the value of language in the formation of identity in the individual. Language (Creole or French) is not the only thing that defines me. There's also the environment surrounding the individual. And think that the continent where I was born (America) must also play a determining role in this process. Language has taken on such a phenomenal value these past years because the old colonizers (France, Spain, England) believe that it is their last chance to keep some link with the former colonies. France having almost no more dependencies dreams of a linguistic empire; it has been named Francophony. Personally, I don't go into these things. They can throw these stories to other people. It is the same with the African stuff. I am my own individual, one in perpetual self-reinvention. I don't have to be into my roots. Just like a person who's walking doesn't have to pay attention to his legs while knowing that without his legs, he wouldn't be able to walk.

DH: Do you believe that your choice to identify yourself as an American writer
that is one with a direct style where emotion is barely perceptible, is
perhaps a recognition - however unconscious- that there can't be an authentic
Haitian writer that is one with a style that is fundamentally Haitian,
independent from French or American touches?

DL: When I say that I am an American writer I am thinking in continental terms. I was born in America. A new man (there's a reason why it's called the New World), born out of his own will, of the mixture between Europe and Africa. But I feel very different from both of them after two hundred years. Literature is too complex to allow frontiers; influences come from everywhere. One may be born in Haiti and be a fan of Borges, Tanizaki or Baldwin. No writer can be from a single country nor from a single cultural universe since one writes precisely to escape oneself, to dream of other universes, to change sexual identity sometimes (a male writer may identify himself with a feminine character and vice versa). Shakespeare's stories take place out of England. We are hybrid beings. One cannot know where one is from. There is no American, German or Haitian style; there is literature, pure and simple.

DH: You often analyze Haitian culture as unnecessarily torn between a now weak France and a mythical Africa. Is your choice of being an American writer
perpetuating that same conflict in Haitian literature and culture by opposing
France with America instead of Africa?

DL: I speak of this issue in my theoretical thinking that is actually not that serious; but I mostly write about day to day experiences. It is in reading my work that I understand who I am and the milieu that has constructed me. It is life that determines my thinking not the other way around.

DL : I don't know what that is. I rather know why I write. I write to control myself. I write to discover who I truly am. I also write to read what I write. It is very personal at first. The reader is secondary. But I would say that literature is the intrusion of reality in the world of dreams and not the contrary. I don't write to dream since I sometimes find that reality is more surprising than dreams. We know that the dreamer has to watch himself in order to escape a nightmare whereas it is impossible to escape reality.

DH: What/who inspired or influenced you to become a writer?

DL: This goes way back. To my childhood. I read a book and I asked myself how the author managed to got me so interested to a world that I had no idea of. And I opened the book to discover its structure, how it worked. The other reason is that I always wanted to draw my grandmother. Since I don't know how to draw, then I decided to write.

DH: As a writer what progressive maturity has occurred in your work in terms of
themes, subject matter and style?

DL: maturity is quite nauseating to me.

DH: Many writers write to convey a message, to give voice to the silence, put
light on or change focus on something. Why does Dany write?

DL: I don't have any message since the reader doesn't exist to me when I write. The reader exists but I don't take him into account when I write. How can I send a message to someone that I don't know personally, someone who maybe knows more about what I write than I do? Sometimes, I think I write mostly to learn more about what happened to this little boy who spent his childhood with his grandmother in Petit-Goave, the attentive observer of red and black ants. I also like the idea of changing perspectives. I don't like what they say about me (I'm speaking of the Haitian that I am) in the west. For them, Haiti is only about poverty, voodoo and dictatorship. That's not all we're about. We are also living beings with goals and dreams. And particularly with a rich daily life. But literature is not simply about getting back at people or cure one's feelings. It's deeper than that.

DH: The book, "L"Odeur du Cafe, " encompasses various subject matter: coming

of age, sexism, mysticism, voodoo and many details about Haitian life and
personalities. How was reality and fiction leveled in this book? As I was
reading it I couldn't help but feel that Old Bones was you. How much of your
childhood was instilled into Old Bones?

DL: It's my childhood. Not everything happened exactly that way but the essence is there. Every thing is there in these two books : " L'Odeur du café " et " Le Charme des après-midi sans fin ". The names are real, even in the details and the topography of the town… But you also have to know that literature is not simply made with truth or reality. IT is a kind of reality. It is as if one was in another dimension. It is the style that allows this trick. Otherwise you only have the linear dimension of life. Style allows to feel and capture the contortions of reality.

DH: How did you come to develop this unique style of storytelling? Why did you
choose the gallery as the focal point of the story?

DL: I go from what is. Of what I have. Of what I deeply experience and feel. Style is the truth of emotion, but to reach the truth you have to free yourself of your social background. Free of motion. Ready to fly, and cross frontiers. To feel in control of your universe. I used to find myself with my grandmother on her front porch in Petit Goave. It seemed normal that this porch became the center of the universe for Vieux Os. And in the left corner was my grandmother. At times, I felt like the porch floated above the town. I don't try to invent. I write what is and I add colors and angles. And there's no regret in me since I always write in the present tense. I don't have to remember my childhood since it's never left me. That's why I write with my senses more than words.

DH: Although filled with poverty, tragedy and darkness, humor, light, life and
poetry are always present in this book. What is your outlook on the conditions of Haitian life in Haiti and the Diaspora?

DL: I don't know what "Haitian life" or what the expression "diaspora" mean. They are too vague for me and not precise enough. I am an artist. I can't conceive life in any other way than the singular. The intellectual thinks in collective terms, the artiste, about the individual. Well, it's not always as schematic. I count stories, traces of life, and free to anyone to see anything else. My books narrate my transition in this America: from the province town of my childhood to my arrival to Montreal and Miami going through Port-au-Prince. It is true that many Haitians have followed similar routes during these last thirty years since we've known similar social and political situations. However, the most important thing is not so much what happened to us but what we've made of this experience.

DH: Sex and money- these are the themes you wanted your books to encompass. "La Chair du Maitre" certainly discussed these themes at length. However, there is also "Pays sans Chapeau" and "L' Odeur du Cafe."
Have you departed from your original goals or is this a discrepancy between your works a revelation of Dany as a deep observer of society, a man who scrutinizes everything to understand things revealing its horrors but also a Dany who's very nostalgic and in love with this society despite its failures?

DL: I never thought that my books had to simply deal with money and sex. It is the commentators who believed that. I knew very early on that I had in my gut a more complex world than that. I even sketch a list of ten books that would combine into one of 3000 pages and issued under the title "an American autobiography." And I always asked the critics to go through the end of the book (the ten books) before making a decisive comment on my work. If they haven't listened to me and have only seen these two themes in my work (money and sex) that's their business. Now it's over; they can shoot. I can already hear the shots in my head.

DH: Do you consider yourself as a writer who is redefining Haitian literature or
one who is part of a greater Diaspora movement that is spontaneously
broadening the definition and perception of that literature?

DL: I consider myself a writer and that's it. I write what I feel like writing. Other people can define me. I write. I am not a Haitian writer. I am a Haitian and I am a writer. Can a Haitian doctor heal a German or Japanese who's sick? Yes, then he is not a Haitian doctor but simply a doctor (since there is no German disease). Sure, as for the disease, there is a personal story and the place where one is living can have an influence on one's health, but it is possible to study medicine in Haiti and be able to heal a sick Austrian. It is the same thing for literature, no patriotism. That doesn't take anything out of my pride of being Haitian. We speak of literature, not of patriotism. In this manner, I am the opposite of a Spike Lee. I admire his style and his energy, but his content doesn't impress me. He reveals his hurt too much. Humor in the face of tragedy seems to me a necessary form of politeness (a gift from Haiti). Whereas Spike Lee has no humor. Like Basquiat, he doesn't know how to joke, with the knife between his teeth. Basquiat is different, but it is his lack of humor that consumed him. His overdose of coke is the result of an egregious lack of humor. Spike Lee doesn't believe that all of this (the drama of life if one wants to call it that way) is only a bad joke. This absence will ultimately have terrible consequences on his work.

DH: Could you tell us about Dany, the not so careless and ironic man behind the
writer?

DL: I have written ten books in order to answer this question. If in reading me one still cannot clearly see me, it is that I haven't succeeded at being the writer I dreamed to be.

DH: In "chronique de la Derive Douce" you wrote speaking of your first days in Canada how you realized that your "life was suddenly in your possession." Would you explain that as a universal experience for the new immigrant or
just a personal one? Chronique de la derive douce

DL: this doesn't only happen to an immigrant. Every human being finds himself one day or another with his destiny facing him. To be forced to leave your country is an exceptional situation. This accelerates this process. The person finds himself in an unknown country, with a new language, in an unknown environment and with no friends. Suddenly, his life is in his hands. A quite general scenario. What is particular, on the other hand, is our reaction to this situation. One has the choice between complaining or jumping into the unknown. Ordinarily, the immigrant complains of not being at home. He is taken by nostalgia. That stops him from becoming one with the new country. Most immigrants like to complain. If one were to listen to them, one would think that their country of origin was the ideal one (one can love one's country while knowing that is not the ideal place on earth). But the immigrant likes to count stories. The same person who just escaped poverty and dictatorship quickly creates a new problem: a complaining nostalgia.

DH: Besides Literature, what are some of your other interests? What is your
involvement in the community if you have any?

DL: I read, I travel and I got interested in film. People think that one has to do something in a society to be part of it. That one has to be present in it, as they say. They always have to see you going here and there. I think that a man like Pasteur has done a lot for humanity in working in his lab. His action was to do his work well. It is how he's saved us from bacteria. However, many of those who benefited of his intelligence have never seen him. I am not trying to compare myself with Pasteur, but rather to say that it is time to move away from demagogic actions and words. I am someone who writes books. To me that is amply enough.

Resources

Past Articles

Selected Books by Dany Lafferiere