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© Hartwig Klappert
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Dany Laferrière
Haiti/Canada-Québec
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Dany Laferrière was born
in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, in 1953. He grew up in the
village of Petit-Goâve with his grandmother, to whom he later dedicated
two novels. He first worked in Port-au-Prince as a journalist however,
for the newspaper »Petit Samedi Soir« and the radio station »Radio
Haiti Inter«. In 1976, under pressure from the repressive political
climate of the time, he saw himself forced to emigrate to Montréal,
after seeing his friend and colleague Gasner Raymond murdered by the
paramilitary acting for the dictator François Duvalier. Some of
Laferrière's jobs in the Canadian metropolis before publishing his
first novel included a stint as a factory worker and as a weather
presenter for a private TV station. In 1985 his first book was
published, provocatively entitled »Comment faire l'amour avec un negre
sans se fatiguer« (Eng. »How to Make Love to a Negro«, 1987), and
immediately bringing him to public notice. The novel depicts a North
America of two tempos, in which an ambitious black writer pens a book
about sexual relations between black men and white women. Here sex is
the only means by which young, poor blacks can participate in a world
from which they would otherwise be excluded. The novel was adapted for
the screen by Jacques Benoît in 1989.
Laferrière published around
ten further novels, all written in humorous, flowing and rhythmic
language, which – according to the author – make up his »American
biography«. They are set in a North America where the ideology of the
American dream prevails, and in Haiti under the dictatorship. The
author thus focuses his attention specifically on the issue of race and
class in the North and South, which he highlights in terms of the
desire of black men to overcome their marginalisation and of their
sexual desire for white women. »I do not describe any innocent
sexuality, but rather a sexuality which is an instrument of political,
social and economic power«, the author declared in an interview on his
novel »La chair du maître« (1997; t: The master's flesh), which
portrays Haiti's devaluation under the nineteen-seventies'
dictatorship.
In 2004 Laferrière made his first feature film as
script writer and director, »Comment conquérir l'Amérique en une nuit«
(2004; t: How to conquer America in one night). It was screened at the
World Film Festival in Montréal, where it was awarded the Zenith Prize.
His novel »Le Goût des jeunes filles« (1992; Eng. »On the Verge of a
Fever«) was also made into a movie as well as his latest work, »Vers le
Sud« (2006; Eng. »Heading South«), starring Charlotte Rampling. Here
Laferrière reverses his focus and describes older women who move to the
South in search of romantic encounters with young black men, and are
successful on account of economic superiority. In France the novel was
nominated for the Prix Renaudot. Laferrière's further distinctions
include the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe and the French Foreign Radio Book
Prize. The author lives in Montréal.
© internationales literaturfestival berlin
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Comment faire l'amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer
vlb
Montréal, 1985
How to Make Love to a Negro
Bloomsbury
London, 1991
[T: David Homel]
Eroshima
Coach House Press
Toronto, 1991
[T: David Homel]
La Chair du maître
Serpent à plumes
Paris, 2000
Le Cri des oiseaux fous
Le Serpent à Plumes
Paris, 2000
Comment conquérir l'Amérique en une nuit
Lanctôt
Outremont, 2004
Les années 80 dans ma vieille Ford
Mémoire d'encrier
Montréal, 2005
Le Goût des jeunes filles
Grasset
Paris, 2005
Vers le Sud
Boréal
Montréal, 2006
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