mishima, my neighbour, dixit Laferriére

“I don’t understand all the attention paid to a writer’s origins. Because, for me, Mishima was my neighbour. Very naturally, I repatriated all the writers I read all the time. … they all lived in my village. Otherwise, what were they doing in my room? Years later, when I became a writer and people asked me, ‘Are you a Haitian writer, a Caribbean writer or a French-language writer?’ I answered without hesitation: I take on my reader’s nationality. Which means that when a Japanese person reads me, I immediately become a Japanese writer.”

I am a Japanese Writer.de Dany Laferriére