The More Practice You Have, The Less

I Think It's Hard To Write A Book About Happiness Because Fiction Requires Tension And Complication.

America's Relationship With Haiti Has Always Been Very Complicated. I Often Say To People, "before We Came To America, America Came To Us In The Form Of The American Occupation From 1915 To 1934."

Sometimes We Mask Ourselves To Further Reveal Ourselves, And It's Always Been Connected To Me With Being A Writer: We Tell Lies To Tell A Greater Truth. The Story Is A Mask; The Characters You Create Are Masks. That Appeals To Me. Aside From That, Too, In The Carnival The Masks Were Beautiful, And Offered A Vision Of Haitian Creativity.

Salt Is A Powerful Symbol In Haiti, As Elsewhere. Salt Of The Earth, For Example Is An American Phrase. In Haiti, Myth And Legend Has It That If You Are Turned Into A Zombie, If Someone Gives You A Taste Of Salt, Then You Can Come Back To Life. And In The Life Of The Fishermen, There Are So Many Little Things About Salt That I Wanted To Incorporate. The Salt In The Air. The Crackling Of Salt In The Fire. There's All This Damage, This Peeling Of The Fishing Boats From The Sea Salt. But There Is Also Healing From It, Sea Baths That Are Supposed To Heal All Kinds Of Aches And Wounds.

After The Dance Was My First Attempt At Nonfiction. I'd Never Really Participated In Carnival, And I Really Wanted To Go. It Sounded Like A Wonderfully Fun Thing To Do. And I Wanted To Write Something Happy About Haiti, Something Celebratory. And Going To Carnival Gave Me A Chance To Do That, Because It Is One Of The Instances In Haiti When People Shed Their Class Separation And Come Together.