An Interview by Jennifer Maritza McCauley
Fabienne Josaphat is a mighty talent. The Haitian-born writer is the author of Requiem pour Anaise, a novel published in Nice, France in 2002 and her fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction has appeared in numerous journals and magazines. She is the fiction editor of Sliver of Stone and received her MFA from Florida International University. Most recently, Josaphat made a splash in the literary world with her newest novel Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow. The work was praised by Edwidge Danticat as “a powerful first novel…an irresistible read” and was named a “Book to Look Out For in 2016” by The Root. Josaphat aims for her work to reach as many people as possible, and she desires to “…contribute something different to Haitian literature…[to mix] the political, the thrilling, the intrigue, the passion, the poetry, all of that together like a big pot of stew…” Indeed she has.
Here we discuss writing historical fiction, survival in Haiti, crafting suspense and the role of the Caribbean writer, among other topics.
ORIGINS
You were originally born in Haiti and moved to Miami, Florida. Would you talk a bit about how your transition from Haiti to Miami has influenced your creative work. Has it?
JOSAPHAT
I moved to Miami from Haiti when I was about 17 years old, so my memory of Haiti was still and is still very vivid (I travel often to visit my father). Haiti is a book in itself, still in progress, or a painting, a work of art that is always unfinished. I think it is a place of chaos and magic that informs my writing as much as it is formative for my being. I don’t know whether I will always write about Haiti, but so far, I write about what I remember of it. I also write a lot about transitioning, and what it means for Haitians to be uprooted, because that’s been my experience, and because Haiti is composed of natives as well as members of the diaspora who have an enormous potential.
ORIGINS
You’ve published beautiful poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction in places like Caribbean Writer, Mandala Journal, Grist and other respected journals. Do you have a genre you’re drawn to? Do you work on multiple genres at one time?
JOSAPHAT
Fiction tends to be my main genre, because it enables you to tell so much using imagination and truth, and that makes it a powerful tool. I love to write novels, and although short stories are difficult, more difficult than a novel, I do love a shorter piece that is fictional. Yet poetry is also seductive for me, and I love to write poems when I have a strong impulse to express something I sometimes cannot write in fiction form. I must say, however, that I don’t believe in sacrificing poetry for fiction. I am a believer in poetry in the sense that she is an untamable force that often claims the right to inhabit works of fiction. I also love non-fiction because it gives me a chance to be honest in a way that fiction cannot afford me, and it lets me share personal stories I otherwise wouldn’t. So it depends on my impulse and on who or what I’m reading in the moment.
ORIGINS
Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow was your thesis at Florida International University. Would you talk a bit about your research process, and how the novel changed from an MFA thesis to its final draft?
JOSAPHAT
Originally, the novel was called Memoriam, then I toyed with the idea of [calling it] Haiti, 1965. None of those titles carried much energy, and it was my MFA program that coaxed the story out of me by giving me the tools I needed. I wrote this novel first by writing it as a screenplay, and then I loved the characters and the story and enjoyed the process so much that I felt it had to be a novel. It took a lot of work not just to draft the story, but also to research the material.
Research happened while I was writing, and it demanded that I invest myself in books that discussed the history of Haiti in the sixties. I tremendously enjoyed that process, because I love learning about the past. I also interviewed people who know about the subject, people who were victims of the dictatorship, who’d been to prison or been impacted in some way. I read a lot of news articles, listened to a lot of music of the era, and the novel evolved into something historical that contained action and suspense that people have actually lived.
ORIGINS
Raymond and Nicholas are so fully realized in your novel, and the plot, which includes imprisonment, deception and escape, moves along at a break neck pace. Would you talk a bit about how you balanced characterization with suspense?
JOSAPHAT
I love this question, because the first part of the project (the screenplay) was helpful in this sense. I spent the entire time writing a script by focusing on action. It comes with the territory when writing a screenplay—action is important, things must happen, time is of the essence. So I needed scenes that led the reader to turn the page for what happens next, and then next, and so on, and this helped maintain the suspense throughout.
The novel, on the other hand, demanded I slow down and think of the characters a lot more. Even though they were realized in my mind, here I had to make sure they were more fleshed out. Raymond is physically different from his brother, he is kinder, his family is his life, and he would give anything to help a person in need. Nicolas is the opposite: idealist, intellectual, self-absorbed. Therefore, even though the novel was still about suspense, it was also about two people who had different agendas, and helping the reader understand them as human beings.
ORIGINS
Survival is a major theme in Dancing in The Baron’s Shadow. Do you think the political climate in Haiti in 1965 made basic survival necessary?
JOSAPHAT
Everything about Haiti is about survival. We’ve had survival in our minds since the time of our ancestors, since we were slaves, since we revolted and seized our independence. The political climate of 1965 definitely called for basic survival. It became absolutely necessary to keep quiet, to whisper, to abstain from speaking the truth in order to live, and for many people, it became necessary to join the side of the oppressor. Many men and women became part of Duvalier’s militia, or they became torturers, or they would denounce their friends or neighbors as communists or anti-Duvalier for the sake of survival.
ORIGINS
You teach a class in historical fiction called "Fiction Through Time and Place" at The Center for Literature and Theater at Miami Dade College. What are some strategies or tips you can give to aspiring historical fiction writers?
JOSAPHAT
I learned that it’s really easy to become absorbed in the research and history. The research never ends. But what I found out is that only a small percentage of that research ends up in the book. What the novel is, first of all, is fiction. So I think it’s important to let the characters breathe and live the story, and only worry about the history as backdrop.
ORIGINS
Your novel Dancing in The Baron’s Shadow has received a great deal of positive acclaim from a wide range of audiences and critics. It was listed as a Books by Black Authors to Look Out for in 2016 by The Root, and Edwidge Danticat called it “a powerful first novel…an irresistible read about the nature of good and evil, terror and injustice, and ultimately triumph and love. ” Do you feel like a representative of Haitian literature now? Are you satisfied with the representation of Haitian, Caribbean or Caribbean American writers in the publishing world?
JOSAPHAT
I am very proud of the work that is coming out of Haiti and the Caribbean right now, but that’s because I know of it and I wonder if the rest of the world is as aware. I love the representation we have now, but it is never enough. There are so many more emerging from the Caribbean, including those just now putting pen to paper, hoping to be published one day. What’s great, however, is that we all write literature in different styles. My hope for myself is to contribute something different to Haitian literature, the kind that mixes the political, the thrilling, the intrigue, the passion, the poetry, all of that together like a big pot of stew.
Fabienne Josaphat was born in Haiti and graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. She writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as screenplays. She is the author of Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow, a novel published with Unnamed Press in 2016. She lives in Miami.