A Valuable Secret: InnerView with Madison Smartt Bell

Photograph by Alyx Kellington

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of sixteen novels, including The Washington Square Ensemble (1983), Waiting for the End of the World (1985),Straight Cut (1986), The Year of Silence (1987), Doctor Sleep (1991), Save Me, Joe Louis (1993), Ten Indians (1997)  and Soldier’s Joy, which received the Lillian Smith Award in 1989.  Bell has also published two collections of short stories: Zero db (1987) and Barking Man (1990).  In 2002, the novel Doctor Sleep was adapted as a film, Close Your Eyes, starring Goran Visnjic, Paddy Considine, and Shirley Henderson.  Forty Words For Fear, an album of songs co-written by Bell and  Wyn Cooper and inspired by the novel Anything Goes,was released by Gaff Music in 2003; other performers include Don Dixon, Jim Brock, Mitch Easter and Chris Frank.

Bell’s eighth novel, All Soul’s Rising, was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of the 1996 Anisfield-Wolf award for the best book of the year dealing with matters of race. All Souls Rising, along with the second and third novels of his Haitian Revolutionary trilogy, Master of the Crossroads and The Stone That The Builder Refused, is available in a uniform edition from Vintage Contemporaries. Toussaint Louverture A Biography was published by Pantheon in 2007.  Devil’s Dream a novel based on the career of Confederate Cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest, was published by Pantheon in 2009.  Bell’s latest novel, The Color of Night, will appear from Vintage Contemporaries in April 2011.    

Born and raised in Tennessee, he has lived in New York and in London and now lives in Baltimore, Maryland. A graduate of Princeton University (A.B 1979) and Hollins College (M.A. 1981), he has taught in various creative writing programs, including theIowa Writers’ Workshop and the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. Since 1984 he has taught in the Goucher College Creative Program, where he is currently Professor of English, along with his wife, the poet Elizabeth Spires.  Bell served as Director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College from 1999 to 2008.  In 2008 he received the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Voicesfromhaiti InnerView English Text

 

AZOR: A National Treasure. . .Gone Too Soon

Less than a month after his 46th birthday, Lénord Fortuné of Racine Mapou de Azor went the way of the ancestors. Our sincere condolences to his family, his friends, and the wide audience that will always treasure the man and the genius he so willingly gave.

News of his passing shook the ocean floor, sending tremors throughout the known world.  Haitians and fans of Rasin Mizik mourn the transition of this Voice.  Life may be ephemeral, but the art Azor produced is everlasting.

Haiti has lost another national treasure. Nou pèdi yon kokenn trezò. The roots of this Mapou run deep in the ground, however.  In good or bad weather, they must sprout again.  Somehow.

Rest in peace.

Kreyòl Pale

Ledikasyon Malediksyon

Sa ki konnen konnen . . .

Sa ki konnen konnen lontan se pa danfans ak cheve long ki bay lespri.

Those who know have known a long time that long hair does not bring intelligence.

Pawòl granmoun la di nou resitasyon repetisyon bèl fraz franse kèlèkèkè, gwo mo, bouch pwenti tilititir, pa gen dwa fè lam veritab monte tab.

Wise elders’ words teach us that repeating fancy French phrases — with lips pointed just so — won’t make meals climb the legs of a dinner table.

 

Kreyòl Pale

 

Justice for Rooldine Lindor

Jistis pou Roudline  Lindor

There are some words that are impossible for this Haitian native to say in English.

Gen de pawòl ki enposib pou mwen, yon ayisyèn natif natal, di an anglè.

Gen de zafè ki pase sou tè sa a ki difisil pou moun ki gen konsyans konprann.

There are some things that happen on this earth that are difficult to comprehend.  

Gen de moun ki pa merite yo rele yo ‘moun’; plis yo avanse lan sosyete, plis yo fè pa an aryè tankou vye bèt raje.

There are people who do not deserve to be called human. The more they advance as a society, the more rearward steps they take, like beasts in the wild.

Moun sivilize pa aji tankou lyon sovaj. Moun ki gen konsyans sipoze respekte lavi lòt. Menm si lòt moun nan se etranje li ye lan peyi w; menmsi nasyonalite lòt la se yon peyi ke w konnen nan fon kè w ou pa gen dwa janm ni sipòte ni renmen.

Civilized people do not act like savages. People with a conscience respect the life of others, even when those ‘others’ are strangers in your lands; even when the ‘others’ are of a country you know in your hearts you will never tolerate.

Douz Jiyè, lan dominikani, de bèt anraje efase lavi yon etidyan 20 an, Rooldine Lindor—yon ti moun inosan. Toupatou pawòl la pale.

July 12th, in the Dominican Republic, two enraged beasts erased the life of a 20 year-old student, Roudline Lindor—an innocent child, really. The news spread like a powerful flood–a category five hurricane, drowning our faith in mankind.

Zak sa a frape nou fò. Krim sa a afekte tout fi tout gason tout kote. Nou mande gras pou fanmi Rooldine. Nou mande jistis pou lavi ke bèt sovaj yo pran.

News of this monstrous crime hit us hard. People everywhere have been struck by this act of unmitigated violence. We pray that Rooldine’s family finds comfort. . . We demand justice for the girl’s abbreviated life.

San ayisyen dwe sispann koule gout pa gout lan dominikani.

Haitian blood must stop spilling in the Dominican Republic.

Vyolans de bandi yo fè kont Rooldine Lindor tèlman sovaj, moun toupatou oblije kanpe sou ran pou yo rele: Roudline se pitit nou tout li ye; se sè nou tout. Se fanmi nou tout.

The violence inflicted on Rooldine was so incomprehensible that people everywhere now stand in line to make their voices heard.  The girl was our daughter. She was our sister. She was family.

Nou mete vwa-n ansanm pou nou rele sa se twòp.

We put our voices together to say Enough.

Li lè pou krim kont ayisyen sispann lan dominikani. Nou mande jistis pou fanm ak gason ayisyen k ap viv lan tout peyi etranje.

The time is now for crime against Haitians in the Dominican Republic to stop. We demand justice for Haitian women and men who live in foreign countries.  

Lè w tande yon bèt devore yon lòt lan raje, nou pa di krik—sa se abitid bèt sovaj. Men lan moman nou ye la sou tè sa a. . . pou yon ti moun pa ka ale lekòl san li pa oblije gen senkant zye deyè tèt li, ka a grav pou lemond antye.

When we hear that a beast devours another in the wild, we don’t speak—that is the habit of animals. In these moments we live today. . .for a child not to be able to go to school without having fifty eyes behind her head. . .the situation is grave for us all.

Pou fanmi Rooldine Lindor, nou ofri kondoleyans ak tout kè nou. Pou lavi pitit fi dayiti sa a, nou mande jistis.

To Rooldine’s family, we offer our deepest condolence. For this girlchild of Ayiti, we demand justice.