An interview with Dany Laferrière

I don’t often interview someone, but last Friday I was given the opportunity to see the Haitian-Canadian author Dany Laferrière discuss Hurricane Katrina and Hollywood disaster movies at a panel discussion at NYU, and to talk with him afterwards.

By the time the event ended, around ten o’clock, Laferrière was hungry for dinner but willing for the moment to have some coffee. We walked to Au Bon Pain, only to be thrown out (they were about to close). We went next to a pizza parlor, where they had no coffee and we settled for bottled water.

With the help of our gracious interpreter, Isabelle Dupuis, the interview somehow came out all right.

The November issue of Words Without Borders, dedicated to Writing from the Caribbean, also features an excerpt from Laferrière’s latest book The World Is Moving Around Me, about his experience during the Haitian earthquake of 2010. The single paragraph called “A Man in Mourning” is a heartbreaking story in itself.