For Election Day Eve, Maud Newton features a very interesting interview with Edwidge Danticat. Ms. Danticat, who lives in Miami, talks about counterrevolutionary Cubans mobilizing against Obama supporters (more on that here), and her concerns about whether African-American, Haitian, and other communities of color will actually get to vote and actually have their votes counted.
Since I closed my earlier post today by yearning for more "stories of workers and the poor" written by "writers of the communities instead of as translated by outsiders," this is a good chance to celebrate the work of this incredibly talented young writer. Her novels and, most recently, nonfiction are among the exceptions that do manage to make it to print, to bookshelves, to critical notice and acclaim. I haven't read all her work but I have read a couple of her novels and they richly deserve the praise they've garnered.
Edwidge Danticat also has a chapter in the book Haiti: A Slave Revolution, which was edited by comrades of mine and includes a foreword by my late beloved friend Pat Chin.
Meanwhile, Tony Christini at A Practical Policy picks up on a surprisingly acute observation on U.S. literature by Edmund White, who says that "the last great taboo in America is class."
Speaking of acute, here's some analysis from Cuba about tomorrow's U.S. election and what will follow.
