Childhood, Exile, and "Land-Time"

Childhood, Exile, and "Land-Time." The years of childhood are the foundation from which I create my characters, while continuing my own wanderings through Time. The brutal separation with the neighborhood of my childhood was my first feeling of exile, the memory of which tenaciously persists in my mind. In the epilogue to my first novel, Le crayon du bon Dieu n'a pas de gomme (God's Pencil has no Eraser), I introduced the concept of "land-time" ("pays-temps"), which has pervaded my creative work ever since. I like to think of the human existence as a form of vagrancy. One wonders from birth to death, at times finding refuge in lodges, which operate as land-times, until the destination. It is no coincidence if, in my writing, the concept of time is linked to that of vagrancy, this unconscious desire to want to cease Time, or at least to not see it through.

Louis-Philippe Dalembert is a Haitian-born novelist, poet, and journalist. His works have been translated into dozens of languages, including Italian, English, Spanish, and German. He has taught at universities in France and the U.S. and has had writer's residencies in Italy and Germany. Among his many awards are the Prix de la langue française and the Prix Goncourt des lycéens. Milwaukee Blues, his most recent novel, was a finalist for the 2021 Prix Goncourt. Dr. Dalembert divides his time between Paris and Port-au-Prince.