KemetLeads
Dany Laferrière
Novelist & member of the Académie française
The Haitian exile who wrote his way from a Montreal factory floor into the most exclusive literary institution in the French-speaking world.
The rise
After a fellow journalist was murdered by the Duvalier regime, Laferrière fled Haiti for Montreal in 1976. Working in factories by day and writing by night, he published Comment faire l'amour avec un Nègre sans se fatiguer in 1985 — a provocative debut that upended expectations of immigrant literature and launched a career spanning two dozen books.