Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work Book

After meeting Edwidge Danticat in March of this year, I decided that I wanted to read Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work. (A title Danticat borrowed from Albert Camus as the title of her 2008 Toni Morrison Lecture delivered at Princeton University). A book of less than 200 pages, composed of 12 essays/chapters and a "postscript," this book---published in 2010---is the ninth of Danticat's published titles. It looks small and unassuming but---trust me---I am still meditating on its content, and will be for a while. Most of the pieces exist in other versions published in places like The Progressive, The Nation, and The New Yorker between the years of 2001 and 2011. One piece, entitled "I Am Not A Journalist"---I recognized as having provided some factual content in Danticat's 2013 novel Claire of the Sea Light.

I first thought the book would be about her personal creative journey and processes, but the affect of reading these essays---almost as a whole cloth---casts a more dynamic net than that. In addition to bearing witness to Haiti's tragedies, and ongoing crises, Danticat also shows us the roles that oral storytelling, filmmaking, radio, and theatre play in contemporary literacy. She also pays homage and introduces us to Haitian writers who have had "to create dangerously" such as Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Jacques Roumain, and Jan J. Dominique.

"Writing is nothing like dying in, for, and possibly with, your country."

Some of the things these essays have begun to make me consider include (1) writing and creating as "disobedience" and "revolt against" multiple hungers and forms of suppression; (2) the idea of "people who read dangerously"---that is, people who read at great risk whether that risk might result in something physically brutal or even fatal; as well as readers who are at risk of endangering their current self-image and worldview; (3) reading and writing as acts of critical empathy and compassion that give us opportunities to listen and be heard, as well as draw parallels and recognize patterns in our human experience.

What would you consider and celebrate as "reading dangerously"?
Is there a writer whose works you have found yourself conversing with over time?

(I have posted a lengthier appreciation of Create Dangerously at if you would like to join the discussion, there!)