With her perky smile and well-carved face, Michèle Jessica Fièvre might easily be taken for a model on the streets of Miami, but no, she writes novels.

Fièvre, who was born in the 1980s in Haiti, carved a little niche for herself in the mystery and horror novel genre. She became one of the youngest people ever to be published in Haiti, next to the 20th Century poet Carl Brouard, and the youngest to have published a novel. Her last name Fièvre means ‘fever’ in English, and she—through her writings—seems bent on giving her readers one, albeit a high one! Obsessed with macabre, mystery-filled subplots, her prose can haunt you even after you’ve flipped closed one of her books.

In addition to half a dozen novels published since her 1997 debut, Fièvre’s work has appeared in magazines, and more recently in Haiti Noir, an anthology of stories about Haiti. Although still at the apogee of her career, the novelist is highly interested in keeping the young Haitian literary movement going, having been the co-founder or founder of two important literary initiatives to encourage writing and help flourish the Haitian literary tradition.

Q&A

Out of all your literary works, which was the most difficult to write?
Sortilège Haitien required the most foot work. Although the book falls within the fiction category, I wanted most of the historical facts to be accurate; this required a lot of research, including phone calls and face-to-face interviews about the political turmoil, the murders and kidnappings, and the protests that were taking place both in the Capital and in the provinces at the time.

Sortilège Haïtien is the story of Manon, a young woman who discovers her sacred ties with Lasirèn, the goddess of the sea. After marrying the most corrupt politician in Port-au-Prince, she goes on a dangerous quest, using both her strength of mind and special powers to deliver Haiti from a powerful dictatorship.

Manon is a painter. I’ve always wanted to be a visual artist but, unfortunately, all I can draw are stick figures. I did not know much about painting then; therefore I needed to research the art and see some artists at work. Also, the novel addresses topics that are still taboo in Haiti, such as homosexuality. I wanted to stay away from clichés and decide whether or not my character would be pro-gay or homophobic since I’m not sure there’s anything in the middle.

According to the feedback you’ve gotten from your fans, and according to your own conclusions, which one of your books would lend itself to a movie adaptation?
I think La Bête (The Beast) or Les Hommes en Rouge (The Men in Red) would make great movies. They’re both action-packed and have been said to leave the reader breathless from one chapter to the next. Scenes are very important in a script, and both stories are scene-oriented with special attention paid to dialogues.

At one point, you left Haiti for the USA, specifically South Florida.
Leaving Haiti was not an easy decision. I love my country—my inspiration comes from my experiences there, and there’s nothing like the warmth and sense of humor of my people. In 2001, I was a third-year med student at Notre-Dame of Haiti. While other students seemed to be able to focus on their studies, what I mostly remember about this period are the panic attacks and the nightmares that haunted me at night. Due to the violence in the country, my anxiety had been growing for years. In 2002, it all just became unbearable. I needed to get away.

South Florida has since become my home. I like it here. I have found a community of writers that I wouldn’t trade for anything else. I graduated from Florida International University, and founded Sliver of Stone Magazine with some of my writer friends who also attended the Creative Writing program there.

I’m very involved with the Women Writers of Haitian Descent—WWOHD—a literary organization that encourages the development of Haitian women writers and fosters greater public awareness and appreciation of their work through local, national, and international education programs, lectures, and events. I’m the editor of Onè? Respè!, WWOHD’s literary magazine.

You’ve chosen to write most of your books in French.
French is my first language. Growing up in Haiti, it was only natural that I write in French. I learned English in high school, and furthered my study of the language by watching HBO and reading the Sweet Valley High and Goosebumps series. When I left Haiti and enrolled at Barry University, I was forced to fully embrace English as a third language.

You completed your first novel Le Feu de Vengeance at just 13.
Oh, I’ve been writing forever. I was actually in 5th grade when I completed my first manuscript, a novella titled La Fenêtre Magique (The Magic Window), which I gave to my teacher as an end-of-the-year present. I want to believe that she still has it, but—oh well! In high school, I finished Le Feu de la Vengeance (The Fire of Vengeance). I wrote most of the chapters during math class.

Which of your characters are you most like?
I guess part of me can be found in all of my characters. I can tell you who my favorite character is: Magalie, in Le Fantôme de Lisbeth. I love her innocence, her talent, and her wit.

Any writers in particular that you model yourself after?
I read so many different writers that it’s a bit difficult to say. Growing up, I loved stories edited by Alfred Hitchcock. The mysterious novels of Gary Victor, I found fascinating. Now I’m particularly fond of Anton Chekhov.

You are one of the most prolific young writers on the scene, having written and published eight books over the course of a decade. Where do you find the inspiration?
Haiti remains my main source of inspiration. Whenever I travel there, I spend hours writing. There’s a feeling I get when I’m walking Haitian grounds—there’s nothing else like it.

Do you think that one day, the ink from your pen will dry out in terms of inspiration?
Sure. When I’m dead.

What would you say was the moment when you felt you had arrived as a writer?
I’m still growing as a writer. Plus my interests and my style are ever changing.

Any advice for other aspiring young novelists?
I’ll say: Just write. Many novice writers get sidetracked because they keep worrying about whether they’re doing the right thing. Well, it’s a bit difficult to find out whether your writing is compelling if there’s nothing on the paper. Finish the manuscript—worry about fixing it later. Some do get the writing done, but do not value the editing process enough. They’re over-confident and believe that the very first draft of their story is ready for publication. Remember: Even the most accomplished writers revise their stories multiple times.

What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m pretty busy. I’m mostly focused on finishing my nonfiction book. I’m working on a manuscript that tells about my experience growing up in Haiti in the 1990’s. The memoir describes a sometimes difficult and sometimes pleasurable journey through my childhood and teenage years in Port-au-Prince. The book is reaching its final editing stage. I’ll be looking for an agent soon. I’m also working on a fantastic novel taking place in Haiti, and on a collection of horror short stories.

Photos: MJ Fievre; Florida Book Review

MJ Fievre’s novel A Sky the Color of Chaos, is a memoir so real, and so horror-novel-scary that when you look at the photo of the smiley author, you have a hard time associating her with the events mentioned in her life story. She’s a survivor of late 1990s and early 2000s Haiti, when the country was going through radical changes.

Digging through newspaper archives will give you the national story, but reading A Sky the Color of Chaos will give you the human story—close-up.

Let’s talk things over with the author and learn more about her book, and what led her to write her memoir at this stage of her life.

Kreyolicious: The title of your memoir is rather imaginative. A Sky the Color of Chaos… You sit there, and you imagine a sky the color of gunpowder. Was this the first title that occurred to you?
It can be a challenge to find the perfect title for a book…something both smart and intriguing that truly captures the essence of the work. People will happily tell you that a title idea stinks, that it’s a cliché, yet they won’t necessarily offer a better alternative. Titles are hard because they can kill a book. In the course of writing A Sky the Color of Chaos, I adopted at least fifteen working titles—from Inheritance to A Girl from Port-au-Prince to Child of My Father. They were all awful. In the end, the title came to me during my semester in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.

Downtown Santa Cruz carries a surprising resemblance to old Port-au-Prince, with its colonial architecture, its wooden porches, its balconies. Just like on Rue Pavée or Rue du Magasin de l’État, in Haiti, there was loud music emanating from car stereos and folks yelling at each other (albeit in Spanish) from across the street or down to the street from 19th Century windows, and streets were sometimes impassibly thick with throngs of people just milling about without regard for cars or buses. It was eerie. While on a taxi on Calle Sucre, I was transported back to Port-au-Prince and I pondered the contrast between the striking beauty of my birth city and the “pop up” violence there.

There is this scene in my memoir where I find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m in the middle of a crowd and there’s a shooting. I take cover behind a trash can and keep my eyes on the gorgeous blue of the sky. An excerpt from the book reads, “I gagged at the stench from the waste; the ground was puke green. As I lay in the mud, I heard more screaming. I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my calves. My entire body trembled. But in the midst of this, the sky remained a beautiful blue.”

Thinking about that scene, many strong titles occurred to me. The next day, my writing students at the International University helped me narrow down the list.

Kreyolicious: That’s such a lovely, poetically-described scene…In the book, you write about your father, in particular his flaws…Was that hard to do?
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how much of my father always slips into my fiction. If I look back on any of my novels—there he is. I’m yearning for his love in Le Feu de la Vengeance (The Fire of Vengeance). I resent his anger in La Bête (The Beast). I wish to run away from him in Les Hommes en Rouge (The Men in Red). I don’t do this on purpose and usually I don’t even recognize it until the writing is complete and there is distance between myself and the work. My father has always fascinated me. He was such an interesting, complex, larger-than-life character.

In nonfiction, the portrayal of such a multi-faceted individual was challenging. I had a love-hate relationship with Papa. It would have been so easy to play the victim and turn the memoir into a pity party, but after my father died, I wanted A Sky the Color of Chaos to have the ring of testament, the sound and feel and grip of a book that was born from truth. I wanted the reader to understand the intricacies of daughterly love.

I don’t think that I overly focused on Papa’s flaws. Yes, my father had many shortcomings, but I also shared with the reader everything that made him a delightful human being: his loyalty to his friends, his sense of humor, his hard work. Getting the essence of an individual and putting it on paper, that’s never easy. I had to grow both as a writer and as an individual to write this story. Rise above the violence and the hurt and the acrimony to find the humanity in my father. He was just a man, after all.

Kreyolicious: There aren’t many books in English written by someone from Haiti about the period you write about (the 1990’s and early 2000’s). Did you feel like a pioneer of sorts?
While fact-checking A Sky the Color of Chaos and conducting some research for my footnotes, I discovered a plethora of news articles about Haiti in the 1990s. Journalists Kathie Klarreich and Michael Tarr were instrumental in directing me towards useful reports. There aren’t many literary pieces in English about this time period, however, and certainly no memoir that I know of, which is unfortunate because the Nineties constitute such an important chapter in Haitian history. The Duvalier era is over. The people get a shot at building a democracy, but the country, once again, falls apart. During the late 1980s and 90s, from when I was eight-years-old to eighteen, Haiti’s government changed forms eight times. The Haitian people endured fraudulent elections, three military coups, a crippling embargo, and a United Nations occupation. I do feel like a pioneer. I consider A Sky the Color of Chaos the first historical memoir about this era. I wrote the book not only to tell my own story, but also to document the story of my time. I was very careful with factual accuracy and chronology, using quotes from newspapers, letters and other verifiable, external records in my footnotes to make this memoir authentic.

Because of their unemotional nature, news articles do not fully capture the impact of political instability and the 1990’s embargo on the every day life of people in Haiti. Children are reported dying but no one describes the piles of bodies at the morgue. (“They were in such a state of decay, they were barely recognizable as humans. Masses of rotting flesh, greenish black.”) News articles might mention the many days when students couldn’t go to school because of tires burning downtown or a new gas shortage, but they are silent as to what these children are up to when left unsupervised. The journalist writes about the many hours spent in lines at gas stations; the memoirist describes the sun toasting the drivers’ bodies, the tempers flaring, the gas station attendant being knifed by an impatient customer. I remember so many nights spent studying in candlelight. I remember many friends fleeing to the United States for a better life. The son of a neighbor boarded a boat that sank at sea. Another became a gang member and robbed his girlfriend’s house. Those stories are more real to me than what was reported in the news. And people need to know those stories.

Kreyolicious: Once the book was printed, you probably read it all over again. In doing so, did you wish you could take some of it back? Whenever a writer gets personal, doesn’t the vulnerability factor kick in?

Throughout the years, I’ve shared many excerpts of the book online, on the Nervous Breakdown and other literary magazines, including Tupelo Quarterly, The Caribbean Writer, and The Southeast Review. Fictionalized chapters appeared in Haiti Noir (edited by Edwidge Danticat) and The Mom Egg. The process of letting go was therefore very progressive. Before the release of the memoir, my personal life was already “out there” for anyone to put under the microscope and judge. I did many nonfiction readings in South Florida (at the NSU Art Museum, at Books & Books, at the Miami Book Fair, and so on) so that I practiced getting over my vulnerability.

My publisher (Matt Peters) and I worked on a series of six formatted proofs before I signed the final consent for the publication of A Sky the Color of Chaos. A month or so before the book came out, I decided to change almost all the names (to “protect the innocent”). At the last minute, I wanted to get rid of the only sex scene in the book (which I did). Then there was my week-long crusade against all curse words, so that the book could be adopted by the public school system. Matt (who is a very patient man and trusts my judgment) had to say, ENOUGH. When I finally signed the release, I felt relieved. I’d been holding on to this book for way too long—eight years!

I haven’t read the book since it’s been available in print. I double-checked the format and page numbers to make sure there were no obvious misprints, but that’s it. I’m ready for the next project. The memoir is done.

Kreyolicious: You were part of the Miami International Book Fair [last year]. How did you enjoy that experience?
I made many appearances at the book fair. I had a blast!

On the Saturday [of the fair], I was part of a Haiti-focused panel titled “Land of Upheaval: A Literary Journey through Haiti’s Modern History.” With moderator Hector Duarte Jr., Fabienne Josaphat, Katia D. Ulysse, and I discussed Haiti’s recent history, viewed through the prism of literature — from the days of Papa Doc Duvalier, to the tumultuous reign of President Aristide, to the earthquake that displaced more than 1.5 million people. (In March of next year, Hector, Fabienne, Katia, and I are traveling to Los Angeles, California, to present this panel at AWP!)

In the afternoon, I was invited by Wordier Than Thou to share at The Swamp a poem about what drew me to South Florida. Later on, I joined Mutsuki Mockett, Nikki Moustaki, and Suki Kim for “The World Over: Memoirs of Place.” All day, I was surrounded by greatness. It’s exhilarating!

On Sunday, I was one of the authors featured at Sunday Salon with Orange Island Art Foundation. I also had the honor of moderating “EXPATS! Haitian Women Poets in Exile: A Trilingual Reading in English, French, and Haitian Creole.” Three women from Haiti read and discussed poems that examine the physical, sociopolitical, canonical, and psychological kinds of exile endured by women writers of Haitian Descent. Poets Rebecca N. Carmant, Angie Bell, and Naomiel (in conversation with me) probed the complex issues of race, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class that limit (or enrich!) their lives as expats.

Kreyolicious: Are you already tackling a novel?
I am! It’s a collaborative work with two awesome individuals: a talented fiction writer from Chile and a gifted Irish-American artist. That’s all I’ll say for now. Details later. I don’t want to jinx it.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE MJ FIEVRE’S BOOK ON AMAZON!