The Story Will Be There When You Need It: A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat writes about death, even the most brutal, with a lyricism that reminds us of a primal paradox—within the deepest violence and loss, the life-force reasserts itself. A mother clings to her starved newborn, a man plunges to his death reviewing moments of love, a boy trapped below earthquake rubble imagines flying a kite, a naked woman bathes quietly in the river where countless compatriots have been slaughtered. By titling her most recent book The Art of Death, Danticat explores how writers craft mortality on the page but also alludes to the possibility that wrestling with death might itself become an art. Indeed, her fiction and memoir lead us there. She sometimes uses the Creole expression lòt bò dlo, on the other side of the water, which refers either to someone who has migrated abroad or has died. These are the intertwined journeys Danticat's stories navigate.