Contributions by Corine Tachtiris
Corine Tachtiris has had a long-standing interest in literature from the Caribbean—what J. Michael Dash calls “the Other America.” She is Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in translation studies at Hampshire College and has written scholarly articles on Haitian immigrant literature. Corine also translates contemporary fiction and poetry by Haitian women writers. She believes Roberto Bolaño wrote the most exquisite line of poetry ever: “squirrels of fire jumping through trees of fire.”
on Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously
Corine Tachtiris
Men anpil, chay pa lou, says a Haitian Creole proverb, many hands make for a light load. As the only Haitian writer widely known to English-language readers, Edwidge Danticat has no one with whom to share the burden of serving as spokesperson for a nation, often “in 1500 words or less.” Her collection of essays, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work, gives readers a sense of the incredible weight the author feels on her shoulders. The weight of indebtedness to her family’s sacrifices that enable her to write today in relative security. The weight of guilt that she has not lived through what others have. The weight of self-doubt and accusations that she might be misrepresenting her native land. The weight of feeling that her writing has to matter deeply. All this weight impels Danticat to … Read More »
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