Practice Makes Perfect

32·7

EXERCICE

Port-au-Prince

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, I grew up in Petit-Goâve, my childhood home. After working, as a 

journalist in Port-au-Prince, I had to leave my country. Living as an exile in Montreal, I had sev-

eral factory jobs before writing my first novel.

Writing Montreal

Saint Louis Square is where I started writing. To me, Montreal means the typewriter. Montreal is 

modernity. I never thought I could write in longhand in Montreal. Montreal is also distance. 

Here I am, in a small room, writing about Petit-Goâve and Port-au-Prince, realizing that most of 

my readers do not know these cities. This affords me a certain kind of freedom. I don’t need to 

fictionalize these cities. For my readers, they are already fictional.