People Often Think Of Haiti As A

I Think We All Wear Some Kind Of Mask. There Are Masks That Shield Us From Others, But There Are Masks That Embolden Us, And You See That In Carnival. The Shiest Child Puts On A Mask And Can Do Anything And Be Anybody.

When You Write, It’s Like Braiding Your Hair. Taking A Handful Of Coarse Unruly Strands And Attempting To Bring Them Unity. Your Fingers Have Still Not Perfected The Task. Some Of The Braids Are Long, Others Are Short. Some Are Thick, Others Are Thin. Some Are Heavy. Others Are Light. Like The Diverse Women Of Your Family. Those Whose Fables And Metaphors, Whose Similes And Soliloquies, Whose Diction And Je Ne Sais Quoi Daily Slip Into Your Survival Soup, By Way Of Their Fingers.

They Say Behind Mountains Are More Mountains.

The Whole Military Structure In Haiti That Existed Until The Early 1990s Was Put In Place By The American Occupation. At The Top There Were Southern White Officers, Who Led An Army That Crushed The Indigenous Resistance - The Cacos. A High-ranking U.s. Officer Said When He Arrived, "to Think These Niggers Speak French!" Later, Haitian Officers Attended The Notorious School Of The Americas At Fort Benning. The Threat From The U.s. Is Something That Is Always Hanging Over People's Heads: If We Don't Behave, We'll Have Occupation Again.

We Need Literature Because We Wouldn’t Fully Know Ourselves Without It. We Need Good Literature To Be Fully Human.