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

One of the most acclaimed authors of Haitian descent on this planet, Dany Laferrière was admitted as a member of the prestigious Academie Française, an institution for intellectual heavyweights that has been in existence for a more than two centuries. Laferrière’s novels have been noted by critics for offering glimpses of Haiti through the themes of exile and acculturation in Quebec that he repeatedly explores in his books. He found it necessary to pen The World is Moving Around Me: A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake, chronicling his brief stop on the island during the catastrophe.

Laferrière’s tomes have earned him several awards, including France’s Prix Medicis Prize for his novel L’enigma du retour (published in English as The Return). Some literary critics have praised the author for his whimsical titles as much as his writing. Several of his books have been adapted for the big screen starting with How to Make Love to A Negro Without Getting Tired, and Vers Le Sud (Heading South).

Your last name is Laferrière. Do any of your ancestors have a connection of sort to that Citadel in Haiti that we all hear so much about?

I imagine that there is a link between me and the citadel because there aren’t too many Laferrières in Haiti. I think it was the architect of the citadel who was named Laferrière. I have not investigated this case because I’m not trying to come from a distinguished family, contenting myself with being an ordinary Haitian.

What do you consider your greatest achievement as a writer?

There is no great achievement in literature. This is different from sport: it is not as clear as a 100 meters race where you’re immediately declared the fastest runner, and the stadium stands up and applauds. We simply write our emotions and we hope that the reader will experience them the way we did. It’s the reader who determines the strength of a book.

Tell us about yourself. Your childhood, and stuff.

I don’t have much to add. I’ve told plenty in my books, and eleven of them, I believe, are translated into English, and in fifteen languages. You must read them, if you want to know me. I worked hard for almost thirty years to stop responding to such questions. Regarding my childhood, I have said everything in Aroma of Coffee. It is up to you to tell me about your childhood and see a link, if possible, with mine and your parents’.

What can you tell us about the writing of your book Aroma of Coffee?

I wrote The Aroma of Coffee after arriving in Miami in 1990. I saw the Caribbean decor of this town, the heat, the trees and it reminded me of my childhood. I sat in a small room and I wrote this book about my childhood in a month. At first, I was taking notes to see if I remembered this childhood spent with my grandmother Da in Petit-Goave. Then I realized that these small paragraphs were not notes, but burning images of my childhood. I published the manuscript as is.

Is there an author whose work that you so admired, that it pushed you to become a writer yourself?

There is no writer in particular who inspired me to become a writer. It’s the thousands of little details that give direction to someone’s life. It takes a tribe to help us finish what we start. These are writers whose spirit, style and heart we love. There are many in my case: Borges, Baldwin, Bulgakov, Romanian, Alexis, Tanizaki, Tolstoy, Diderot, Gombrowicz, Baldwin, Hemmingway, Marquez, Amado, Miller, Ducharme, Miron, Walcott, Carpentier, Chauvet, Woof, Rufo, Graham Green, Bukowski, etc. All of them helped convince me that this was what I wanted to do.

Out of all the books you’ve written, which one has been the absolutely most painful to write?

The book cost me my back is Le Cris des Oiseaux Fous. I finished it with the help of five pillows because of a terrible backache. I thought it was a physical problem when in fact it was the most emotionally painful book. In it, I mentioned leaving Haiti, my father’s exile, and the suffering my mother endured from seeing the two men in her life—my father and me—go into exile.

When you travel to Haiti, what are some things that come to your mind?

When I am in Haiti, nothing else comes to mind other than being in Haiti. Haiti is too alive to give you time to think. There is always something in the house, in the streets—in life—there. It’s when I’m not in Haiti that I harbor thoughts about Haiti. When I am outside of Haiti, Haiti is in me and I am in Haiti.

Your bio says that you lived in Miami for a time. Why did you ultimately choose to live in Montreal?

I first lived in Montreal after leaving Haiti for the first time in 1976. Then in 1990, I went to live and write in Miami (1990 to 2002). In 2002, I returned to Montreal where I’ve lived up to now. I didn’t choose it in 1976. I had to leave Haiti abruptly, as I was in danger of death, just after the death of my friend, the journalist Gasner Raymond.

What is the Haitian community like in Canada?

All is well in the community. It’s mainly based in Montreal, and increasingly in other cities like Quebec. Members of the community operate in all areas: taxis, hospitals—many nurses and doctors—engineers, workers, artists—actors, writers, painters—restauranteurs, shopkeepers.. It is very varied…The President of the council of the city of Montreal is a Haitian poet named Benjamin Frantz. The President of l’Union des écrivains Québécois—the Union of Quebec Writers—is a writer of Haitian origin Stanley Péan, and so on…We can say that after more than 60 years of presence in this city, [the Haitian community in Montreal] is a resounding success.

If you could talk to all the young aspiring authors of this world, what would you tell them?

Read, read, read without attempting to judge. Read to learn. And don’t be like those people writing blogs who give their opinion constantly when they haven’t yet written a single book. When one tries to write, when one tries to do something significant in any field, one becomes more humble. You develop more respect for others’ work. When you’re too hard on others, you’re digging your own hole. You’re always going to have this fear of not living up to your dreams. Instead, look at things this way: you’re a chick who’s trying to fly. You have to learn, take note of great sentences, write simple stories—not to publish, but to study range—like a pianist. Have self-restraint, but don’t be shy. Be absorbed in your work. And if you can’t take criticism, don’t show your work. Protect yourself—and when you’re ready—send it to a publisher—and not another writer, because he’ll be busy with his own books. He’s already given you everything a writer can possibly give—his own published works. As for me, I published through Memoire D’encrier, a book that chronicles my life as a writer and reader for young writers: Journal d’un jeune écrivain en pyjama [Diary of a young writer in pajamas]. It was picked up by [France-based publisher] Grasset. If you want to compliment a writer, don’t tell him he’s a great writer. Let him know by citing passages from his work that you’ve read his books.

You’ve said you are often asked why you don’t write in Creole, your first language.

My answer: Why don’t they translate my work in Creole? I’m referring to a bona fide translation of Aroma of Coffee and some of my other books (Pays sans chapeau, Le Charme des Après-midi Sans Fin, Le Cri des Oiseaux Fous) done ​​by a real writer of the Creole language. The art of writing is the same in any language: you must write constantly in that said language to achieve acceptable results. It’s not enough to be French to write a good book in French, just as it is not enough to be Haitian to write a good book in Creole. The language must work to make him [creatively] discharge. Instead of criticizing a writer for not writing in [his] native language—writers are essentially free beings—we should instead offer to translate his book. And after evaluating your credentials, and seeing that you are up to the challenge, he accepts your proposal. It’s not a matter of faith, it’s an art.

If there is a year that would go down as the year of the greatest achievement in the literary career of Paulette Poujol-Oriol, it would no doubt be 1980, the year she turned 54. That year would bring Poujol-Oriol a great deal of critical acclaim (including the Deschamps Literary Prize) with what some consider to be her most outstanding work: Le creuset: roman.

The novel covers more than a century in the lives of a Haitian family, starting with the matriarch Hermansia Pierre, a woman born under Emperor Faustin Soulouque. Ti Sia, as she is called (Sò Sia, Man Sia afterwards…Sister Sia, Madame Sia), grows up as a homely servant in the household of a relative, and marries at 17 to an older man, a soldier. Procreating is the poor man’s way of acquiring children, and since the first two children that she bears die prematurely, she is deserted by her husband. Just when she thinks everything is lost, Compad a seasonal Cuban merchant steps into her life, and by the time he leaves her never to return, she doesn’t even hold grudges because he left her with Linda, the seed she’s dreamed of at last. Linda marries Merantus Tervil, and that relationship yields Pierre “Roro” Tervil, who practically dominates the rest of the book. With the money left to him in an old mattress by his godfather Boss Calalou, Tervil sets out to make something of himself. During the U.S. Occupation of Haiti in the 1920s, he befriends an American hospital, who’s instrumental in getting him a full scholarship to the United States to become a full-pledged pediatrician. While there, Tervil becomes involved with Lynn, but at his departure he breaks off the relationship with her, with the rationale that she will never adapt to Haitian life and norms. Ironically, while on a steamship returning to Haiti, Tervil meets blonde haired, ice-eyed Micaëlle Deperac Landsfeld, a German-Haitian, returning from Europe. She’s 18, and he’s already in his 30s, and they begin a torrid affair on the ship. All is well until they land in Haiti. When her highbrow, hard-nosed Haitian elite parents uncover the affair, they explode. The reader, of course, notes how a relationship with a fellow compatriot can consist of even more difficulty than that one with a foreigner.

Le Creuset is not a romance novel, though it definitely has its moments, but it’s more like a detailed sketch of life and norms in Haiti. Color issues, social prejudice, education, feminism—are all explored within.

Poujol-Oriol wouldn’t publish another novel until 1996, the riveting story of Coralie Santeuil in Le passage: roman. Where Hermansia Pierre is a take-charge woman, Coralie is so weak, and is so lacking in taking initiative, that she exasperates the reader. Four years prior to telling the story of Coralie, Poujol-Oriol had written a collection of short stories that she entitled La fleur rouge: nouvelles. This book, as with the others, show how much of a genius of the written word that Poujol-Oriol was. In each story, she depicts pieces of Haitian life, sometimes evoking a chuckle, sometimes a shake of the head. There is the story “Lucette”, in which she writes of a socialite in Port-au-Prince who goes to France in search of a husband, accompanied by her mountain-bred playmate. The socialite has some plastic surgery while there to fix her buck teeth, and to decrease her bust size. After a five year campaign, she finally lands the husband, and returns to Haiti with the childhood playmate, who is now in her late teens. The socialite sends her off her childhood friend off to the “trou”, the hole where she came from. The wise reader reads into this, that the girl is sent away—under the pretext that she let some prized birds fly away—when in reality it is because her mistress fears that she will become major temptation for her new husband. The other stories in La fleur rouge: nouvelles follow this same pattern; simple introduction, denouement, and then a final O. Henry-like element of surprise.

Poujol-Oriol was also an educator it turns out, but how glad one is that she found time to write these works, which are a great contribution to Haitian literature. Poujol-Oriol’s genius is recognized by many including Nadève Ménard who in the book Ecrits d’Haïti: Perspectives sur la littérature haïtienne, [Writings of Haiti: Perspective on Haitians Literature] classifies the novelist as one of the most remarkable literary giants of the 20th Century.

Image Credit: Radio Television Caraibes

More than four decades after she first published her debut novel Le Mal de Vivre [The Agony of Living], Nadine Magloire remains a literary enigma to many. Literary analyst and critic Dr. Myriam J.A. Chancy’s book Framing the Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women was many an English speaker’s introduction to this trailblazing writer. Magloire who was born in the early 1930s in Haiti, studied in Port-au-Prince, then London, Paris, and Montreal. These days she lives in the latter city, having made it her home since the late 1970s. For those of us who are curious as to what it was the literary scene was like in Haiti in the late 1960s, and what it was like writing as a woman in Haitian society, Magloire is the person to look to.

Many literary critics agree that Magloire broke ground in Haitian literature, and is a model of feminism in 1960s and 1970s Haiti. In her writings, Magloire is bold, sassy and unflinching. In interviews, she doesn’t hold back. Here is what she had to say about her work, Haitian literature, and being regarded as one of Haiti’s literary pioneers.

Q & A

Do you remember the first work of literature that you wrote?
My first work is Le Mal de Vivre, the first version. I wrote it very quickly, almost without stopping. I was afraid of not getting to that point with it, in other words [the point] where the text is substantial enough to be considered, say, for publication. I had aborted a couple of drafts, just as I mentioned in my “mini-novel”: “This time around will I go beyond a first chapter?” I did worry about it. I wrote the way one walks, not knowing where I’m going. If the path leads nowhere, too bad. I’m used to it. For some time I forgot all about this writing thing, but it just wouldn’t die in me. I quickly released the first draft, a little too fast—in October or November 1967. After a rather praise-filled critical appraisal from Roger Gaillard, I thought I had not been clear enough. I expanded this first version a bit and I published the new text in 1968. This is the one we know. I suppose there are some copies in some libraries.

What do you remember of your childhood?
In the 2009 title Autopsie in Vivo, I say: “My childhood has never left me.” I’m not going to mention it here. I spoke about it at length in my book. Even at the ripe old age of 80 years, I still see my childhood in my dreams. It is curious, my dreams are for a distant past.

You’re a writer, and so is the protagonist in your first novel. Your name is Nadine, and your protagonist’s name in your novel is Claudine. Is the –dine ending just a coincidence—-after all that’s a popular suffix in girls’ names in Haitian culture, or is the novel autobiographical?
I’ll tell you a secret. My heroine in the beginning was called Annie. I changed her name to “Claudine” in order to use the nickname “Dinou” for her that my lover at the time gave me.

Your mother Carmen Brouard was a musical artist. Do you think that when you came on Haiti’s literary scene, the fact that your mother had been a cultural intrepid of sort, made it easier for people to accept the candor of your first novel?
Not at all. My mother, young, returning from Paris shocked Port-au-Prince. My book too. The first person I met after the release of Le Mal de Vivre told me, “Your novel exploded like a bomb!” People were shocked because no Haitian writer had talked about sex as freely as I did and I was a woman. In addition, I had a chapter that criticized the young bourgeois, while I chose to sign my book in the most exclusive club in Port-au-Prince: Le Cercle Bellevue. Members of my family were shocked. In 1975, Le Sexe Mythique was a scandal too.

You wrote your first novel in 1968. Your second novel was published in 1975. Your next literary work was not published until 2009. During that interval, did you give up on writing?
As a matter of fact, I started writing part of the manuscript for Autopsie in Vivo in 1973. I finished it in 1981. I wrote very irregularly. Le Sexe Mythique [The Mythyical Sex] that I published in 1975 had the subtitle Autopsie in Vivo [Live Autopsy]. As I explain in the introduction to my novel in 2009, Le Sexe Mythique should be included. This text was written by my fictional heroine Annie, who wanted to be a writer. As it was independent of the rest, I wanted to publish it before returning to Montreal. In fact, it is from August 1973, when I arrived in Canada as a “landed immigrant.” For some time, I did the back and forth thing. It wasn’t until 1979 that I stopped going back to Haiti. I had Canadian citizenship in 1980. So Le Sexe Mythique should be part Autopsie en Vivo. But eventually I let it stand on its own. And as I wrote: Le Mal de Vivre and Le Sexe Mythique can be considered as a painter sketches before the big picture.

The literary critic Joëlle Vitiello labels you as a feminist. Do you consider yourself one?
Certainly. Le Sexe Mythique is altogether a feminist work. Men did not like it. Same thing with the sequel Autopsie en Vivo. In the first one, I mocked men a bit and their worship of the male genitalia. In the second book, they weren’t depicted in a good light. My heroine is ruthless in describing their shortcomings. She falls in love at first, then she she becomes lucid, and does not mince her words.

Were there other Haitian women writers before you that you admired?
For a long time, books by Haitian authors were not available. They were not reprinted. I read the first edition of Gouverneur de la Rosée [Governor of the Dew]. As well as the collection of poems by [René] Dépestre Gerbes de Sang that I have in my library. In Haiti, I never came across [books by] women writers who preceded me. Fils de Misère by Marie-Thérèse Colimon was published simultaneously with Le Sexe Mythique in 1975. While I was signing my book at the bookstore, she came to La Pléiade to buy my book. I asked her to sit besides me and to sign hers. I say this because I was very sorry to see the rivalry between writers. I think it’s not petty. Among current novelists I read and loved are Jan J. Dominique, Yanick Lahens, Ketly Mars and Myriam Chancy, who is unfortunately not translated into French. Myriam Chancy is for me a great writer. I have not yet had the opportunity to read Edwige Danticat.

In the late 1970s, you moved to Canada for good. Was it because you felt artistically stifled in Haiti?
I always wanted to live abroad, in a large city with an interesting cultural life: concerts, theater, ballet, radio, museums and so on.

According to Joëlle Vitiello in an article for Ile en Ile, practically all the members of your family were artistic types, and people who at one time or another were the center of Haiti’s intellectual scene. Your uncle was the renowned poet Carl Brouard; your dad was Jean Magloire, a government official and a journalist; your paternal grandfather Auguste Magloire was a historian;and your maternal grandfather Raphaël Brouard was one of the backing sponsors of Les Griots, a major literary magazine of the 1930s. How did it feel growing up around those people? Knowing that you were part of this literary and intellectual elite, that you were their seed?
It was natural for me. It was not as if I had been transplanted from one environment to another. I lived amongst [people like] Jean Price Mars during my teenage years and until my departure for Paris. My mother was a friend of Clara Mars and I was a friend of their daughter Marie-Madeleine. There were books in my family. I loved to read. I loved the rosy romance novels at the library at [the school] St. Rose de Lima. Later on, [I read the major] literary works. I was introduced to music early. My mother taught piano and composing. We had all these records. During my adolescence, I loved Wagner, Mahler, Puccini, having discovered [them] in 78s [an ancestor of the CD]. I also liked French singers, Léo Ferré, Serge Gainsbourg, Guy Béart, Juliette Greco, Catherine Sauvage.

At some point, you have studied radio and television broadcasting in France.
In 1955, before leaving for Paris with my mother, I spent some time at Radio Commerce. I don’t remember the name of its director. He gave me a letter of introduction to someone in French radio and television. That’s how I came to enroll at RTF [Radio Diffusion Télé Française]. We were supposed to learn to write for radio. Our scripts for television were to be free of [aspects of] cinema. In principle. We first learned how to do [professional] photography. I would wander in the streets of Paris with a friend and would click and click really fast. I still have a lot of black and white photographs that I developed but never had time to put on paper. We had an internship at Honfleur in Normandy. The professor had a camera; the only student who had one was Claude Lelouch. I must tell you that all these students had turned to television, having been unable to enter IDHEC, the film school in Paris. They were film buffs. In my case, I stopped after a year. I was not planning on returning to Haiti. I knew I had no chance to work in radio and French television. I do not know if some of my colleagues went on to work in the television [industry]. Lelouch went on to become a famous filmmaker. Upon my return to Haiti, I worked in the radio [industry]. I had radio show for women that was aired for years. My program for women [aired] from 1965 to 1973 first on Radio Haïti, then at MBC—Magloire Broadcasting corporation [owned by] my father’s cousin—[then on] Radio Métropole—which still exists and another [station]—I’ve forgotten the name.

Above: Magloire at a launch party for the magazine Le Fil D’Ariane in Pétionville.

What do you wish someone had told you about being a novelist?
Nothing. I took literature writing courses at the University of Quebec in Montreal in 1985. I couldn’t write anymore. I was experiencing a nervous breakdown. I had to write texts that the teacher and other students read and evaluated. This stimulated me. That’s it. I wrote a few short stories.

At one point, you founded a literary magazine in Haiti called Le Fil D’Ariane.
A friend who had a small advertising agency Publigestion asked me to start a literary magazine with her. She would take care of the advertising and I would take care of the writing. Later down the line, she dropped the project. She probably estimated that a monthly magazine would not rake in much. But the idea had already taken root in me; I did not want to give up. When I was working in the radio and I had to find my own advertising. I hated it. I did not want to start having to solicit advertising from customers. A girlfriend of mine assured me that she would get me advertising. So I started in the business. It was a passion for me to prepare my magazine. I did just about everything. The young man who initially did the layout [dropped out of the project] after the first issue. I could not afford to pay a professional for the job. Most of the money that we got from advertising went to editorial and the printing of the magazine. I chose a good printing house—Deschamps. For the articles, I had some voluntary collaborators: Michaële Lafontant Médard, Junie Magloire, Odette Roy Fombrun, Ghislaine Charlier-Rey, Marcus of Radio Métropole, Liliane Devieux-Dehoux, Maximilien Laroche, Myrna Magloire Theodore, Claude Dauphin Andrée Naudé. Lucien Rivière made cartoons for eight issues. Claude Demesmin was the photographer. I wrote a lot.

I was fascinated to this magazine, but it was a constant struggle with the house Deschamps for text composition and printing of each issue. While all the money from the advertising were going to them, they had other projects that were more lucrative than my magazine. It was supposed to be a monthly, but two or three months could pass without [an issue being released]. I wanted to be able to pay employees one day. But I lost advertising. I realized that there was a time that would come when we wouldn’t be able to publish the magazine any longer. I decided to leave for Montreal where meanwhile my mother and my daughter had gone for the latter’s piano lessons. She had enrolled at the University of Ottawa where the piano teacher she wanted was teaching. She eventually earned her Master’s degree from the University of Montreal.

What inspired that title?
It is of course the thread in Greek mythology that guided Theseus through the labyrinth of Crete where he had gone to kill the Minotaur. My magazine held a thread out to readers, numerous sections guided them in various fields. Here is the summary of the first issue: Mes propos [Editor’s Letter], Un pays à découvrir [A Country to Be Discovered], Visages de Port-au-Prince Hier [Past Faces of Port-au-Prince], Visages de Port-au-Prince Aujourd’hui [Contemporary Faces of Port-au-Prince], Notre Amérique [Our America], Parlons française [Let’s Speak French], Livres et auteurs haïtiens [Books by Haitian Authors], Ironie du sort (Irony of Sorts—personal bits about myself), Education [Education], De la musique avant toute chose [Music Before Everything Else], Métier: artiste [Career: artist], Trois Petits Tours et puis s’en vont [Three Little Tours and They’re Gone], Grand Écran [Big Screen], Votre corps et vous [You and Your Body], Pour gourmets seulement [Gourmets Only], Port-au-Prince la nuit [Port-au-Prince at Night], Exploration dans les abysses [Exploring the Abyss], Les Potins d’Ariane [Ariane’s Scoops], A Belles Dents [With Pretty Teeth].

Was it the only one of its kind in Haiti at the time?
I think it is.

How was the literary scene in Haiti in the late 1960s and up to the late 1970s?
Other people other myself can tell you. I find no interest in it.

When you wrote Le Mal de Vivre and Autopsie en Vivo, and when you sit and write any other novel, do you usually want to pass a message across?
I’ve always thought that a Haitian writer couldn’t do art for the sake of art. There are too many horrendous things in the country that should be stigmatized. It seems to be that I am part of the tradition of the novelists of the past. Which has been lost to certain Haitians. It so happens that the release of my novels coincided with the earthquake in Haiti. It seems that because of this terrible occurrence that’s happened to them, it’s all over sudden forbidden to criticize Haitians. Some in Quebec think the same thing. My novel finished in 1981. It laid dormant in a drawer for 28 years. And its realities are more than ever true. There’s no point in blinding oneself to [the truth]. How can one heal if one refuses a live autopsy? That’s what I wanted to do around the time I wrote my novel. Things, far from improving, have gotten even worse.

You were one of the very few Haitian women writers who were writing novels in the 1960s and 1970s. Why do you think that was the case?
I don’t know. The number of writers, men and women, has increased surprisingly. Maybe all those dark years that the country has experienced partly explains this. Those gifted turned to art or to write. It was a refuge. And then what happens elsewhere is quickly known. Minds are open. Another thing I was surprised. People read. And they read the books written by Haitians. This was definitely not the case when I left the country in 1979. Despite this bias to the Creole language, the language of instruction, the literary language of Haiti, Haitian writers write well in French. It is rather paradoxical.

The author and literary critic [Dr.] Myriam J.A. Chancy summed up your book Le Mal de Vivre this way: “Magloire’s novel ultimately reveals that Claudine’s inability to survive is also a function of the fact that to be a woman in the Haitian context is to be denied a privilege; it is for that reason that Claudine clings so fiercely to those privileges that only class can provide.”
Quebec novelist and playwright Michel Tremblay, whose works have attracted many academics, said he has never understood scholarly theses. I think academics write for their peers. I do not see on what [Dr.] Myriam Chancy based her evaluation that Claudine clings to her social privileges. [Her analysis] states that [the character Claudine] has no compassion for those less fortunate than her. This is a very superficial analysis of my heroine. As I already said, I consider Myriam Chancy a great novelist. But she applied this scholarly grid—she cites theorists—that does not fit Claudine. This was was a character sketch in a very short book. I hope that my heroine Annie’s two novels Autopsie in Vivo and In Vivo are less ambiguous. It is true that the reader is involved in reading and brings her own personality into her interpretation of a novel and its characters. The reader has a partial role as creator. That’s the way it is.

Above: Magloire in a photo taken in 1986.

What was the publishing process like in Haiti at the time that you ventured into publishing your book?
Autopsie in Vivo is a novel I finished in 1981. As I explained in the introduction: Based in Montreal, I had lost my natural readership. I didn’t think a publisher in Québec would care to publish me. At the end of 2008, I was 77. I had two cancers. I wanted to leave behind a work to Haitian literature and to the Quebecois if it would be well-received. A friend had self-published his own book. I thought I could do it too. After all, in Haiti, I had been my own publisher: Éditions du Verseau. Obviously, here it would be much more expensive. I tried it under the names of Éditions du Verseau and Frantz Voltaire’s Éditions CIDCHA, a publishing house based in Montreal. The manuscript was bulky. I first published it under the title Autopsie in Vivo. It cost me a lot of money. A year later, in 2010, I fared better. I had a little more experience. The second volume, although it has roughly the same number of pages, was not too expensive. It was suggested that I give it another title as it could be read without [a reader] knowing the previous one. But for me, the two volumes were one. Its title is Autopsie in Vivo—La Suite.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to become a writer?
I will refer you to [a passage] that I wrote in Le Mal de Vivre “I thought that my talent had to expand, my personality had to mature. My experience was insufficient and I wanted to cultivate my future.” Towards the beginning, having the gift [of writing] is necessary. Some experience too; you must have something to say. And it is essential to read a lot in order to master the language of writing. Writing a diary is good practice.

Do you have any regrets?
I regret that Haitians refuse to be lucid. I regret that they do not understand that it is not those who flatter them who truly care about them. I regret this hatred that continues to separate them. Nothing is built with hatred. No progress without solidarity. One is condemned to not progress or to even sink.

Evelyne Trouillot is the progeny of one of Haiti’s oldest literary families. Her uncle Hénock Trouillot was a novelist, sociologist and anthropologist and her brother the late Dr. Michel-Rolph Trouillot was a widely respected historian and thinking tank. Evelyne Trouillot herself has yielded literary critic and educator Nadève Menard and print magazine and web publishing entrepreneur Shadine Ménard.

Trouillot is the author of several books, some for the juvenile audience and she’s the creator of novels like Rosalie L’Infame [The Infamous Rosalie] a historical work set in pre-1804 Haiti. That novel struck a chord with many literary critics including Léon-François Hoffman, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and the author of the book Essays on Haitian Literature. “I find it interesting and well-written,” he says of the novel. “I also think that the accumulation of torture scenes has a deadening rather than reinforcing effect. But that is a minor point.”

La chambre interdite [The Forbidden Room] was the literary world’s introduction to her work but her most recent work is Le Bleu de l’ile [Blue Island]. That literary project marked the first time Trouillot ventured into play-writing and she immediately struck gold and silver, becoming the recipient of the prestigious Beaumarchais Prize, a literary honor given to Caribbean playwrights. Trouillot has also written for the juvenile audience, among these works an illustrated children picture book L’Ile De Ti Jean [Little Jean’s Island].

Here she is discussing her family background, her literary works and the writing process itself.

Q & A

You were born into Haiti’s literary elite. Was every other visitor in your home writers and poets when you were growing up?
I would say that it was more an intellectual environment, with a strong emphasis on history and law because my father was a lawyer and a history teacher. My grandfather also was a lawyer and my uncle was a historian. Therefore, the main subjects of conversation were centered around history, but on Sunday mornings, my father would receive his lawyer colleagues; some judges would be there as well. I had the task, and I loved it, to make coffee for the group. I kept the love of coffee and the challenge that comes with intellectual exchanges. I grew up with the love of sharing ideas. Also, my mother was a nurse with a strong sense of community. She helped tend the wounded during hurricane season, helped administer vaccines. I remember people and kids from the neighborhood coming to our house to get their shots. My interest in history as well as in social issues and education comes from my parents. It is the combination of all these childhood experiences that make me what I am today. the fact that I also use writing, poetry as a way to express my views of the world, of life, of human relations is my own choice.

What are some of the most cherished memories that you have of your childhood?
At the family table, we children could talk and express our ideas and opinions on important matters. My parents would discuss with us and listen to our opinions. I think for the time my father was rather progressive as far as child rearing was concerned. I have memories of laughter and joy, tears and sadness over little matters, all that is part of childhood, but mostly I recall the love of my parents, of my siblings and my cousins who lived with us. Our home was an extended family where there was my aunt, my grand-mother, cousins who shared our everyday life. Now in Haiti and I guess in most countries, it is very difficult to have these types of big households. We lived in St Antoine and most people knew one another and adults had authority over all children. It was a community, with its weaknesses and its strengths, it was not perfect but it was a community and it gave me a sense of belonging.

Was there an epiphany-laced moment for you, when you thought, “Oh my goodness, I can write! And I’m quite good at it?”
I don’t recall such a moment. I always loved writing and I was fortunate enough to be raised in a family where I had plenty of books to read and where I was surrounded by other people who also valued the written word. Like most kids or adolescents, I started with poetry. I also kept a journal. However, in high school I remember I had to write a vivid description as an assignment, and the teacher although he gave me a very good grade, wrote as a comment that I was too harsh with the character and that I had too much imagination. Luckily for me, I took it as a compliment.

Your novel Rosalie L’infâme takes place in Haiti before the Revolution of 1804. What was writing that novel like?
Writing Rosalie L’infâme was a very intense experience. First of all, I had to research and document myself on the lives of slaves before the revolution. It not an easy task since most written testimonies originated from the former masters. Secondly, it was very distressing to delve into this time of our history, when women, children and men were treated like animals. I had to learn to control my emotions, to channel them and to find the best way to make the readers see the point of view of the enslaved. I wanted to give voice to the women, men, children, our ancestors who lived these terrible times. Therefore, I had to have details on their everyday lives. I did not want to write about the revolution itself despite its great significance in world history. What I wanted was to show what happened before, to talk about the “invisible” people, the ones who made 1804 possible. Women and men who refused to stay enslaved, who resisted any way they could, poisoning their masters, committing abortion or suicide, killing their infants to spare them life as slaves. While writing this novel, I learned to respect my ancestors, not only the heroes who are frequently portrayed in the history text books but the everyday women and men that they tend to forget, men and women who fought against slavery, who fought to keep their dignity and humanity.

With writing a novel, there are endless revisions, moments of writer’s block, and plot uncertainties. When you sit down to create a literary work, how do you know when it’s reached perfection, and when you’ve reached that moment of the end of revisions and rewrites?
Writing is at once tedious work and a spur of spontaneity, at least for me. Sometimes, the words come like they were waiting to come out and they just flow on the paper. Other times it is a struggle until I find the right way, the perfect way to express what I want. Sometimes it is necessary to delete some pages, to delete and start over, to distance myself from the work and start something else until I find the right tone, the correct voice. Every writer has his or her own strategies, her own ritual to keep the creativity and nourish it. Even when a writer has moments of doubt, like creators sometimes do, it is important to keep working, going over the plot in your mind, talking with friends and family. I think that for most writers there is a fair amount of doubt when writing and I think it is healthy to have from time to time enough humility to question one’s choices in order to improve your work.

Do you have a favorite writer?
I have many writers whose work I admire. And through the years I keep on adding names to the list. I read constantly, but there are so many good writers around the world, I wish I could have time to read more. There are some poets whose poetry helps me through tough times, whose poetry keeps me going by reminding me of the beauty that words can create; the beauty that is around us and that art and poetry can make visible to us. I will name two poets who unfortunately are dead: René Philoctète, a Haitian poet, and Mahmoud Darwich, a Palestinian poet, but there are many, many more.

Some writers love to write about the lives of their characters, and reveal themselves through their characters. Of all the characters you’ve created in your books, which one—or even ones—are most like you?
Mostly, I use what I see around me, the feelings and emotions and the way people express them. Writers are very observant people. I use what I see, but sometimes for some characters, I use traits from people close to me. Like in Rosalie L’infâme, Lisette the female protagonist is a mixture of my two daughters and one of my nieces. I created in my mind Lisette with their features all mixed and intertwined. To answer your question, I don’t think any one of my characters is totally like me. Some are the total opposite of me, and I see it as a challenge to try to create characters that are not mere reproductions of myself, but who are authentic and complex and show a broader or finer view of humanity.

Do you think that literary talent is something that can be inherited?
I tend to believe in the power of the environment. I think when one grows up surrounded by people who value books and intellectual work, it is not a coincidence if that person chooses to pursue a liberal career or wants to be a writer. But what I consider the most important, is the personal intake of that individual, how he works to maximize the capital he inherited. This is a personal responsibility, the decision to work with what you received and make it go further.

Plidetwal is a poetry collection that you published in the mid-2000s. Some poets have stated sometimes it’s harder to write a poem than it is to write a novel. Do you share the same view?
I will agree. Fiction is important and requires imagination, sensitivity, the capacity to organize the plot, to build credible characters, to tell the stories in a powerful and original way. I enjoy writing short stories because for me it is like chiseling a jewel. I love writing novels and feel myself getting caught in the story I am creating. But poetry is different, and I will say that indeed it is harder. It is like digging into your most complicated and profound thoughts, digging to find a way to express them beautifully. It is also like finding meaning in the most trivial events. Poetry is the ultimate beauty, beauty of ideas and of words. It can be painful to write until one finds the right words, the images that fit the ideas, the ideas that best convey human feelings and thoughts. I just finished working on a book of poems in French and it was very demanding work, the kind that you cannot get out of your mind, that keeps you awake, that makes you hurry to put down the images that you think are just what you were looking for. Yes, writing poetry is much harder but it brings such joy and peace, it can comfort and stimulate; it can make you feel so much alive when you read it.

From L’oiseau Mirage [Mirage Bird] to Ma maison en dentelle de bois [My House of Wood Fiber] you certainly haven’t neglected the juvenile audience. What do you think can be done to encourage kids to read more?
Like I said before, I think the environment plays a crucial role in kids’ desire to read or to write. However, I don’t think there is a recipe to create writers. Of course, to encourage creativity, to help youth better appreciate their literary and cultural heritage, I strongly believe in giving them access to libraries, to a rich and diversified cultural environment. I am sure the sum of these conditions will provoke the desire to write, to create among youth. But it is not a recipe. I think what triggers the desire to write is a mixture of individual and environmental factors. One does not always know when it is going to emerge. After the earthquake, my siblings and I created the Anne-Marie Morisset Cultural Center—my mother’s maiden name. This is a place where we hope to receive more and more kids and youth, to give them access to cultural resources that they do not have at home. We have a small library for the neighborhood school children and youth, we show documentaries, movies, have conferences and debates, writing workshops and poetry workshops. And it is amazing to see how open children can be towards poetry. I think this type of cultural environment can make a huge difference in the way kids perceive their community, their country and their role in its development.

There are many out there with ideas for novels, for all sorts of books who never get seem to get down to the actual writing. What advice do you have for such individuals?
Like I said before, writing is a lot of work and sometimes, an idea is not enough. It is a starting point but there are so many people writing in the world that one has to find not only original ideas but unique ways to express them. If you want to write, your writing has to make a difference, otherwise why do it? And to do that, you have to have something to say, you have to be determined to work hard, not to be too easily satisfied and continue despite obstacles you will certainly find in your way.

As far as you can see, do you think that with time more and more writers are going to write in Kreyòl? Or do you feel that the language ratio when it comes to writings from writers of Haitian descent will remain virtually the same: a rough percentage of 40% English 55% French and 5% Kreyòl?
More Haitians write in Creole now than they did twenty, even ten years ago. And it is a sign of overture for the language, a sign of acceptance of one’s linguistic diversity, a sign of empowering for the Creole speakers and readers. I wish that at the State level there were the appropriate and necessary actions to give Creole its lawful and legitimate place. First, Creole should be properly taught and learned at the school level, its use will allow a more democratic spread of knowledge. Education should allow young Haitians to be true bilinguals; it is not an impossible task. For too long, French has been used to discriminate against and keep certain social categories away from social, political and economic spheres. Also, writing in Creole, translating classic masterpieces in Creole, is a sure way to promote the language. More Haitian writers are writing in Creole now and it is a good thing. Creole and French are the two official languages of Haiti and writers should be able to choose in what language they want to write. Writers of Haitian descent who live outside of Haiti will evidently write in the language of the “new land” terre d’accueil—whether it is English, Spanish or German.

What must everyone who wants to become a writer know?
Writing is not an easy task; it does not necessarily bring fame and money. People who want to become writers should do it because of a passion for writing, a desire to express something that cannot be held inside. People who want to become writers should be ready to fail and to continue; to doubt themselves and nevertheless fight against all odds. However, the mere act of writing should bring joy and satisfaction to the writer, a feeling of being oneself in a rewarding way. Even before one thinks about publishing, the mere fact of creating a plot, of building characters should bring a feeling of accomplishment. A desire to be all you can be as a writer, as a poet.

Don’t you dare doubt Gary Klang’s Haitianess, starting with his last name. Klang, it turns out, is as much French, and as much Haitian as, say, Cartier, Jean-Baptiste, and de Ronceray. Born in Port-au-Prince of a French father and a Haitian mother, Klang left Haiti in his late teens for France. Arriving Paris, he hit the books and earned several degrees, including a doctorate, at the world-renowned Sorbonne.

In the mid-1980s, the novelist-poet co-wrote Haiti! Haiti!: Roman [Haiti, Haiti! A Novel] with fellow Haitian writer Anthony Phelps. In the early 1990s, the publishing house Humanitas published a collection of his poetry Je veux chanter la mer [I Want to Sing the Sea] and Les fleurs ont la saveur de l’aube: poemes [The Flowers Have the Scent of Dawn: Poems] as one volume. The 2000s proved to be a most artistically fruitful decade for the writer. His pen yielded some of the most acclaimed works of his career, including Kafka M’a Dit [Kafka Told Me] and Un Homme Seul Est Toujours en Mauvais Compagnie [A Lonely Man is Always in Bad Company].

Klang was among the nominees for the Haitian Grand Literary Prize in the mid-2000s, and was elected as the head of Conseil des Écrivains francophones d’Amérique [Council of French Language Authors in America] in 2007. His standing in French-language literature has earned him several other honors, including a national reading on Bastille Day (Klang was chosen by the French government for this honor). He is among the members of the Association des Ecrivains Québécois (known by the acronym UNEQ), and is also an active member of the Association des Ecrivains de langue française, an organization for writers made up of people with French roots.

Ex-ile has been regarded as being the essence of Klang as a writer and poet. His undying romance with the written world has helped him produce works of literature that has brought him critical acclaim and personal satisfaction. He’s been living in Montreal, Canada since the late 1970s.

Q & A

Tell us about your childhood.
My childhood in Haiti was a very happy one; it was truly the good life. At the time, I was painting with my grandmother and painted alongside other painters of renown like Lazare. My greatest achievement was to have sold a cloth painting to the Spanish ambassador. But when I left Haiti for Paris in the early 1960s, I lost all desire to paint the minute I stepped on that airplane. I never understood this phenomenon so abrupt and mysterious. To think how much I loved painting, I lost all taste for this passion that was such a big part of my childhood and adolescent years.

You left Haiti in the 1960s. What can you tell us about this period?
I left Haiti under Duvalier, because of the dictatorship. It was a terrible time. Overnight, people, you thought to be normal, were transformed into bloodthirsty beasts—in Tontons Macoutes—who took pleasure in terrorizing and killing. Psychopaths gave free rein to their instincts and each day brought its share of corpses and bad news. Such and-such friend had died in the night; so-and-so had disappeared. I experienced the jails of this doctor, who, instead of healing, killed. In a short time, I knew what it felt like to be in prison and threatened to be killed by Macoutes. Once with a gun pointed at my chest. It was a time of hatred and evil.

Is there a story to the last name Klang? It’s rather rare.
The name comes from Klang Metz, Alsace-Lorraine. During the fall of France in 1870, my great-grandfather refused to become a German and preferred exile in Algeria, the birthplace of my grandfather who died in the Dominican Republic. I tell part of the fascinating history of my family in my novel, Island with Two Faces, I blend reality and fiction. To make a long story short, my grandfather worked for French Cables and was required to travel around the world. He met my grandmother in Brazil at the bottom of the Amazon, where he had many adventures and was even almost being eaten by piranhas. His horse disappeared before his eyes. At the end of his life, he moved to the Dominican Republic where there are my two aunts and many cousins. My father, he was born in Paramaribo. So I come from a family where adventures abound when you think that my uncle, Antonio Guzman, husband of my Aunt Renee, became president of the Dominican Republic in 1978 and drove the last remnants of the Trujillo dictatorship in the person of Balaguer. You understand now where are my hate dictators and my love of travel.

I was born in Haiti. I did all my schooling at St. Louis de Gonzague and then I went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. On my mother’s side of the family, everyone was born in Haiti. The paternal side of the family lived, and still lives in the Dominican Republic. I repeat, I am a true and native Haitian who left the country when I was nineteen. I am a true, and native Haitian, fluent in Creole, adoring the language, but not knowing unfortunately how to write it much, because in my time, it was forbidden to speak Creole. This is why many writers from Haiti, around or about my age, do not write in Creole. Times have changed.

Do you sometimes long for those years you spent in Haiti?
For many years, I had a lot of nostalgia for my homeland thinking about my family, my friends, the good times spent together before the arrival of the tyrant. I lived alone in Paris so my agony was even greater. My poetry collection, Ex-ile, and some of those who followed were largely inspired by nostalgia. But gradually, I realized that this feeling was a prison and I had to get rid of it. My last two collections—Il est grand temps de rallumer les étoiles [It is Time to Rekindle the Stars] and Toute terre est prison [All land is prison] – expressed this break. I continue to love my homeland, but I do not want to be a prisoner. I must harmonize patriotism and love of humanity. There are too many things to see in the world to be locked in one land. Always return to the yin and yang of the Chinese.

What inspired your first novel L’île aux deux visage?
In my novel, L’île aux deux visage [The Island with Two Faces], I wanted to write a thriller that was more than a thriller, telling the story of my family and also that of our island. Let us consider these three points. In addition to the classic authors I love—Rousseau, Hugo, Aragon, Césaire, Dostoyevsky—I have always admired the great writers of thrillers, detective stories and adventure novels, whom I respect as much as others, and I wanted to emulate them. This story technique tends to be more difficult because you have to say enough, but not too much, totally controlling the suspense. Among the masters: James Hadley Chase, Robert Ludlum, Alexandre Dumas, Michel Zévaco, Jean Bruce…there are others. I also wanted, as I said, to tell the story of my family and my island, so I mixed reality with fiction to the point where an American critic once told me he thought the Nazis I had described actually existed. I also told some of the history of invasions against Duvalier, one of the most glorious in the history of Haiti and unfortunately people don’t know. The name of my friend Gerard Lafontant must be remembered among others who had fought with the guerrillas and Haitians and foreigners against Haitian and Dominican fascism. He told me of many feats alongside not-so-well-known heroes, such as André Rivière, a brave Frenchman, among the brave who fought in Algeria. There was also the Dominican Arache Monte, another hero who was not afraid of anything. Gerard told me that he fought a shark with his bare hands, but I think that part is a little exaggerated. This fascinating period should be further explored and taught, because nowadays courageous politicians are hard to find. I get the feeling that I’m surrounded by people who are just tad bit cowardly—who are afraid of their own shadow.

Did your parents ever put any pressure on you to pursue a medical career? You actually ended up getting a doctorate degree from the prestigious Sorbonne in literature!
No, my parents never put pressure on me to become a doctor or otherwise, even if my grandfather, Dr. Waag, left his name to a street in capital [Port-au-Prince]. They always left that open. By the way, I would say that this is the best way to avoid problems with children. That parents stop wanting to tell them which way to go. If I have any advice to give them, it would be: Get out of your children’s way! They know what they want. I did all my literature studying at the Sorbonne, because it was the only thing that interested me in life: books and literature. This caused me a lot of problems from the standpoint of employment. I never wanted to teach, but I did what I loved and I became what I wanted to be: a writer. I’m invited around the world through my work. What more can I ask for in life?

left: Woy gade li! Little Gary Klang as a tot in Haiti.

When was the last time you went to Haiti?
The last time I was in Haiti was in 2012, as part of a trip organized by the PEN Club branch of the country, led by Jean-Euphèle Milce and his wife, Emmelie Prophet, both well-known writers. It was an exciting journey; I was surrounded by so many of my friends Josaphat-Robert Large, Rodney Saint-Eloi, Georges Castera, Lyonel Trouillot, Louis-Philippe Dalembert, Evelyne Trouillot, Christophe Charles, Verly Dabel, Deji Olukotun Bonel Augustus. Unfortunately, I saw the unspeakable damage of the earthquake—this monster emerged from the bowels of the earth at four o’clock in the afternoon, destroying most of Port-au-Prince, my childhood neighborhood in Bourdon; my school St. Louis de Gonzague gone; The death and destruction…

After you left Haiti in the 1960s, When was the first time you returned to Haiti? What’d you think of it then?
In spite of Duvalier, and in spite of the risks, I went back to see my parents and my maternal grandmother in Haiti. It was a matter of pride and honor, I have always said that the country does not belong to the Duvalier. It belongs to all of us. As simple as that. They could have stopped me of course, but they could not stop me from returning.

The great rupture was made by Duvalier, who I believe has destroyed Haiti. With him, it is as if the floodgates of murder and hatred had opened. Duvalier was the absolute opposite of Mandela—the Tonton Macoutes being the symbol of Evil. I will never forget these men in black with dark glasses who thought only to kill and terrorize weaker ones. As a teenager, without valid reason, I was arrested two times and I was robbed two other times—once with a revolver pointing to my chest. This over the course of less than three years! The country has never regained its balance after Duvalier.

You write poetry, essays and have written short stories and novels. Is the novel your favorite literature form?
I love all genres that I undertake: novels, poetry, short story, drama, essay.

At which point, did you learn how to write Creole?
As I have already pointed out, speaking Creole was forbidden in the classroom at schools in the 1940s and 1950s. We were punished for it. That explains why I never learned to read or write Creole. But that did not prevent me from talking it—and from loving—this language. I repeat: I am a natif natal, a true Haitian even if I don’t write Creole!

L’Immigrant, a theater piece you wrote, ended up being adapted for television.
This play was commissioned for television. I wrote it over the course of a week, while working full-time. I had just arrived in Quebec and life was very difficult for me as an immigrant with young children. But I liked to work on commission because [that’s when] our imagination is fully mobilized. It was the first time that I wrote for the theater and I loved the experience. Seeing my paper character become fleshed out was an extremely intense pleasure, as if I was putting a child into the world. The only thing that had irritated me was that the director wanted to interpret my piece in his head in a way that was not always satisfactory from my point of view. Sometimes he’d do a funny scene out of a passage I had intended to be serious, and vice versa. But as I had sold the piece—a very good price at the time—I had to accept all the terms. Ultimately, I took extreme pleasure to see my work on a TV show that had a Sunday night primetime showing. I dream of one day repeating the experience.

By some accounts, there is a big literary Canadian-Haitian community.
There are many good writers from Haiti to Canada, particularly in Montreal. This is probably one of the places in the world where Haitian literature is doing best and in various genres: poetry, novel, essay…To cite just one example: Rodney Saint-Eloi, writer and poet, has established a publishing house, Memoires d’Encrier, which is only ten years old, but already stands out around the world.

In terms of the writing process, story structure, and other aspects of creating literature, what advice would you like to give to writers?
Generally, I don’t give advice because this is didactic. Each one has to find his own style, his way and voice. If one does not find one’s voice, then one is not a writer. Being a writer is to have the tone that makes one unique. A line from any of these authors Rousseau, Césaire or Rimbaud is enough to identify any of these authors. This is what it means to be a writer. You should also know the pitfalls—avoiding clichés like the abuse of adverbs, adjectives. The bad writer abuses clichés because he doesn’t know the art of style. He mistakenly thinks that just writing correctly is enough. But to become a writer and go beyond the stage of writing, as Barthes said, you must have understood many things. We must give the talent—if one has it—time to hatch. At its own pace. For some, like Rimbaud, the genius comes out of nowhere, but for others, we must be humble and work hard.

From all the literary works that you’ve created, is there one that you hold close to your heart, that is especially a favorite?
I like everything I’ve written to varying degrees. That said, my first collection of poems, Ex-iles, without playing favorites, is for me a lucky charm. This was my first book, the one who got me started and gave me a lot of joy, a literary prize in France in 1988. It was also a bestseller that has sold 3,000 copies in one year, a record for poetry.

What message would you like to give out to this generation, and generations that will come after?
I don’t really like the word ‘message’, being neither a wise man nor a prophet. But since I have to answer this question, I will say this: Do not expect anything from others. They don’t really have a message to convey to you. It’s up to everyone to find their own way. That said, you can admire some people and they can inspire you. From Nelson Mandela, for example, you will learn two key things: never be afraid and do not hate others. But it is a lesson that is also found in the Gospels and in Gandhi. It seems to me that in life the rule of thumb is never to hurt others. Ever! Never humiliate, never hurt, never belittle anyone!

Klang walking on the Great Wall of China during a trip there.

In the early 1970s, you left France for Montreal, where you’ve been living ever since. What changes have you witnesses in the Haitian community in Canada over the course of the decades?
I came to live in Montreal because I wanted to live “in French” and because the city put me halfway between France and Haiti. France, where the parents of my wife lived and Haiti, where mine lived. Today there are many more Haitians in Quebec and they are, I think, well integrated. Despite all the difficulties of life at the moment, I feel that we are much better here than elsewhere.

Where do you find inspiration for your poetry?
Inspiration is something quite mysterious. It comes from nowhere, or rather from the depths of the unconscious. I used to say that the gods of Olympus send it to us, because without inspiration there is no poetry. The first verse is given and it is up to us to find the others.

You and Anthony Phelps another legend of Haitian literature teamed up together to create Haïti! Haïti! How was that collaboration?
It was a great experience. At first, we thought we would write each of our parts separately but it was impossible because the details [in the narrative] wouldn’t add up. Finally, we got together. It [the book that resulted] is an indictment of the Duvalier dictatorship. We knew that after the publication of the novel we could not return to Haiti, but we accepted our fate. Fortunately, the dictator had the good grace to ​​fall nine months after the book’s publication, like a birth. Haiti! Haiti! has somehow announced the end of a tyranny which had oppressed the people of Haiti for thirty years.

Do you have any regrets?
Yes, I regret some things. Currently, my biggest regret is not having asked some questions of people who are now dead. When you’re young, you do not think about it. But at a certain age you realize – too late – that there are things you would like to know or clarify. So I have some questions that remain unanswered, unfortunately. But other than that, I have no major regrets, because I accomplished almost everything I wanted to. I wanted to be a writer and I became one. I wanted to have children and grandchildren and I have had them—eight in all. Life even gave me more than I expected. For example, when I first started to write, I never thought that one day I would be asked to do readings of my poems around the world: China, Africa, Latin America…That is a great gift from life.