How did you come back to this? Why?

Yeah, I mean, after it happened, I, you know, and then this experience in the mall happened.

And then in February 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas happened where it's mass shooting in a school in Parkland, Florida, when I was living in Florida.

So then I, and then my children started having these mass shooter drills at their schools.

And then we started going to the March for Our Lives rally.

So I wanted to write about, in nonfiction, that loss of innocence, right, that young people in America have.

We're in an era where, you know, I went to Brown University in graduate school.

All right.

I'd love for you to read a passage from, from De.

Thank you.

Uh, the book's title is De, D-E-accent grave-Y, and it means, uh, grief, mourning in Haitian Creole.

"On the day of the Brickell apartment closing in early February, I do a walkthrough with Zola that she had requested before Isis does hers with the Cabreras.

Zola walks in and out of every room, her sparkly black leggings and matching top catching the morning light.

'So many people have been here since we listed,' she says, flipping a light switch on and off in the main closet of the primary bedroom.

'That stops today,' I say as she exits the room.

Their homes.

I would love for our listeners to hear.

Yeah.

So this is the, uh, how the book, uh, opens.

"I dive to the restaurant floor as gunfire rips the air outside.

The concrete is warm and sticky, the kind of gooey surface that would slow your step even if you were wearing rubber-soled boots, let alone flip-flops, what my mother calls sandales Jésus-Christ, Jesus Christ sandals.

The restaurant is named Oasis, probably because the word can be understood by English, French, Spanish, and Haitian Creole speakers.

Since it opened in the mall a few years ago, offering a Caribbean fusion menu, I have walked past dozens of times, but I've never gone inside.

What do you want people to understand about Haiti after reading your book?

Okay, so 2026

... with more or less like 2026.

And 2018 was still, you know, it was the beginning of a, a year of, uh, protests called Payerock, and there were other things.

But, uh, but 20- 2016, this, the Haiti that these, uh, that the parents, uh, return to was relatively peaceful compared to the Haiti-

Yeah

... f- for that looseness, and I think that the looseness comes, um, through in that.

And, um, this idea of like, yeah, this is like in a way fall, you know, she's not the woman her mother would've been even if she-

I

think probably, you know, it's also immigration related.

The most of that I've seen is folks who read Brother, I'm Dying, which is my memoir about my uncle dying in immigration custody, among other things.

And folks have, you know, people would, often it's other families who have been through that situation.

But for example, that book, when I was writing it, you know, my intention for it was, I was like, I hope they give it to immigration officers to read so that they can have a better view of the people who've come before them.

And so I don't know if that's happened, but I've had a lot of folks respond.

And I've had, for example, when I write about immigration, sometimes like a lawyer or two reach out and then I'll put them in touch with someone.

What is this relaunch? What is going to be different? And then also, what is this communal work in which you're engaged? I mean,

I wonder, when did you start feeling like Sophie's voice was being asked to represent this whole larger thing? And does it still feel that way?

Well, it started, you know, when I started doing public events for the book and people were saying, that's not me.

She doesn't know me.

That's not, you know.

there's that experience of you for you for come from a smaller or, you know, minoritized or marginalized group in a society where people think you're doing anthropology.

And so and that's a very, I think, awkward place for the reader from your country, who was like, Well, I didn't elect you like, to represent me.

And so, but the writer, the person doing it, whether they're, again, I mentioned, like the color purple, or Maxine hunks Kingston, or you know, all these other folks who wrote a story that was singular, that they trusted at some point that you would be directed by the qualification of the book.

So I wonder, is there a book on that list that actually influenced you?

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's the sentiment that so many immigrants have.

It's, uh, you know, the, the poet, uh, Warsan Shire writes that no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark, and that's so, that's so profound.

I've heard it in, in, you know, been said by so many people.

We leave home for...

People leave home for many different reasons, but often people who, like my parents, left at the time they did left because, uh, there was an urgency to it, just as people are leaving, uh, who are leaving today for different reasons are being driven out of their homes.

Uh, that's definitely in many cases would not have been their first choice, and that's what my, my father was saying because definitely my uncle, uh, had chosen to stay like some folks do.

And that was two years ago when, uh, there was a lot of turmoil in Haiti, but I, I wouldn't mind your take on that.

So what made you want to talk about this story, "Two Men Arrive in a Village" by Zadie Smith?

Well, I read the story when it was first published in the magazine, and I read the interview that accompanied it.

And, you know, I'm interested in all things Zadie Smith.

I'm, like, a big fan.

And this year I started thinking about it because, you know, in my birthplace in Haiti, there are so many situations like that right now, where many young men are walking in villages and, and causing terrible harm, and harming women, and harming children, and displacing people.

Then, like, as someone who, um, you know, has written about but has also followed instances of violence like this, I grew up during a dictatorship where, you know, there were, like, henchmen of the dictatorship who had all these privileges who can cause this kind of violence.

And so I revisited it with that experience in mind and just found really, like, as I'm in conversations with my family members in Haiti who are sort of living through similar things, it just hit me, like, in a very profound and personal way.

And now here's Edwidge Danticat reading "Two Men Arrive in a Village" by Zadie Smith.