Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
“Folklore is the arts of the people before they find out that there is any such thing as art.” - Zora Neale Hurston
For centuries, Black and indigenous people have passed down stories across generations. From bedtime stories, to stories told on corner blocks, the stories we have told one another have often sustained our lives among colonial violence, becoming our guiding night lights in the darkness.
We welcome our Haitian sister writer, Edwidge Danticat, for a live conversation on Folklore, Spirituality and Storytelling.
As we approach the end of this white facist presidency, one that denied Haitian immigrants their right to refuge under TPS, what are the stories of possibility we need right now? What can we learn from our Haitian sisters, descendants of the Haitian Revolution, priestesses of ancestral magic? How do we preserve and stay close to our sacred tradition of oral storytelling?
Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, Krik? Krak!, The Farming of Bones, and Everything Inside. She is the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Diaspora in the United States and Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2. She has written seven books for young adults and children, Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama's Nightingale, My Mommy Medicine, and Untwine, as well as a travel narrative, After the Dance, A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel.
“Folklore is the arts of the people before they find out that there is any such thing as art.” - Zora Neale Hurston
For centuries, Black and indigenous people have passed down stories across generations. From bedtime stories, to stories told on corner blocks, the stories we have told one another have often sustained our lives among colonial violence, becoming our guiding night lights in the darkness.
We welcome our Haitian sister writer, Edwidge Danticat, for a live conversation on Folklore, Spirituality and Storytelling.
As we approach the end of this white facist presidency, one that denied Haitian immigrants their right to refuge under TPS, what are the stories of possibility we need right now? What can we learn from our Haitian sisters, descendants of the Haitian Revolution, priestesses of ancestral magic? How do we preserve and stay close to our sacred tradition of oral storytelling?
Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, Krik? Krak!, The Farming of Bones, and Everything Inside. She is the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Diaspora in the United States and Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2. She has written seven books for young adults and children, Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama's Nightingale, My Mommy Medicine, and Untwine, as well as a travel narrative, After the Dance, A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel.
