Artistic License: Edwidge Danticat, 'Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work'
Danticat’s new collection of essays, “Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work,” was almost ready when the disaster hit. Danticat says she “couldn’t publish the book without acknowledging the earthquake” — which claimed the life of her cousin, Maxo.
In “Create Dangerously,” Danticat writes about the makeshift camps that were set up around Port-au-Prince and the pain of seeing the city crumbling beneath her feet.
The author also focuses on Haitian artists, exploring the relationship between a country fraught with danger and instability, but driven by a fierce need to create.
“By the time I get to paper, I’ve sort of worked out all my anger,” she says. “And I like a reader to experience something in a way that mirrors the way I experience it, so I write without much commentary.”
That’s true in her novels, such as 1999′s “The Farming of Bones” and 2002′s “Behind the Mountains.” It’s also true in the pieces here; Danticat simply tells her stories and those of others by stating what happened without adding a great deal of emotion to the writing.
“If your citizenry or political ideas creep into it and that’s what you want, that’s fine,” Danticat notes. “The first purpose of any artist, including the immigrant artist, is to make art that’s engaging, that stands on its own, and if it does other things, that’s great.”
As a novelist, essayist and memoirist, Danticat points out that there are both pros and cons to living outside of the country that provides much of her inspiration.
“What’s lost is the day-to-day contact with the reality,” she says. “But what’s gained is an opportunity to re-create something that merges your memory with your imagination.”
“It’s an alternate reality.”
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Thu., 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Written by Express contributor Amy Cavanaugh
Photo by Nancy Crampton
