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| Dimitry Elias Leger, photo by Jason Liu |
Dimitry Elias Léger is the author of the new novel God Loves Haiti. He has written for the Miami Herald and Fortune magazine, among other publications. Born in Haiti, he lives in France and the United States.
Q: Why did you decide to write a novel
set in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, and how did you come up with
your main characters, Natasha, Alain, and the president?
A: I’d returned home from two tours of
duty for United Nations agencies running recovery programs in Haiti after the
earthquake. I’d always wanted to write romantic novels about Haitians, and the
muse slowly showed me how.
Funny conversations I’d had and overheard
began coming to me. A sympathetic adulteress clumsily trying to make things
right in a place and at a time when everything seemed broken came to me too.
Her dilemma, and her lovers’ frustrations, seemed particularly Haitian and
ultimately universal.
Q: What kind of research did you do to
write the book?
A: I read a lot of poems and poetic
novels about journeys through terrible places and times, i.e. wars. They
reminded me of the tenderness I needed to capture in the novel.
Q: How was the book's title chosen, and
what do you see as its significance?
A: I knew I wanted the word “Haiti” in
the title. “Haitian Fight Song,” the name of a furious and epic Charles Mingus
song, was a working title. Three-quarters into writing, “God Loves Haiti” came
to me after I wrote a conversation between two characters talking about
redemption. I’m a huge Bob Marley fan, and “Redemption Song” seemed good, but
“God Loves Haiti” seemed better, extravagant, and sweetly humorous.
Q: What do you think are some of the
most common perceptions and misperceptions about Haiti that people living
outside the country have?
A: Haitians are vain, but, like most
old countries, we don’t suffer from vainglory. We know we’re not perfect, so
the most common perception of Haiti is that it is poor and unlucky, and that is
not news to us.
The misperception most common is the
assumption that we have nothing positive going for us, as if poverty, bad luck,
and poor government are damning failings that deny people the ability to love,
laugh, and act the fool. Even I fell prey to the corrosive impact of bummer
headlines about Haiti over the decades.
Then I landed in Port-au-Prince while
it was in the throes of a national bout of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Once
I felt its heat, and saw the square chins of countrymen who dared you to
underestimate them, I felt the optimism I always had about Haiti return to me
in full force.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: The book tour has been all consuming
from three months of preparations to two months of international execution and
travel. This winter I’ve been working on sharing my life’s work and greatest
joy with all my loved ones in the communities that nurtured me. It’s been
wonderful and gave me tons of material for the theme of the next novel.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Much as God Loves Haiti is a romantic
comedy about what it’s like for hard-luck people, porcupines, to mate and to
love a hard-luck place, to me, the novel is as much a referendum on god’s love,
since atheists, agnostics, like the faithful, experience bad luck streaks, like
good luck streaks, and curse them all the same.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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