Edwidge Danticat Reads Zadie Smith
6/1/202544 min
Edwidge Danticat joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Two Men Arrive in a Village,” by Zadie Smith, which was published in The New Yorker in 2016. Danticat, a MacArthur Fellow and a winner of the Vilcek Prize in Literature, has published six books of fiction, including “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” “The Farming of Bones,” “Claire of the Sea Light,” and “Everything Inside.” Her memoir “Brother, I’m Dying” won the National Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, among others. She has been publishing fiction and nonfiction in The New Yorker since 1999.
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First 90 secondsDeborah Treisman· Host0:00
[intro music] This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from The New Yorker magazine. I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker. Each month, we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This month, we're going to hear "Two Men Arrive in a Village" by Zadie Smith, which appeared in The New Yorker in June of twenty-sixteen.
Edwidge Danticat· Guest0:25
How proud we are in retrospect of our women, who stood in formation, arms linked, the one to the next, in a ring around our girls as the tall, dim man became agitated and spat on the floor.
Deborah Treisman· Host0:43
The story was chosen by Edwidge Danticat, whose works of fiction include the story collections Everything Inside and The Dew Breaker, both of which won the Story Prize. Hi, Edwidge.
Edwidge Danticat· Guest0:54
Hi, Deborah.
Deborah Treisman· Host0:55
It's really, really nice to have you back on the podcast.
Edwidge Danticat· Guest0:58
Well, it's nice to be back. It's been a while.
Deborah Treisman· Host1:00
[laughs] It's been a while, and I will never forget that you were the second guest ever on the podcast back in two thousand and seven.
Edwidge Danticat· Guest1:07
Oh. And people weren't even doing that many podcasts back then.
Deborah Treisman· Host1:10
Yeah. So what made you want to talk about this story, "Two Men Arrive in a Village" by Zadie Smith?
Edwidge Danticat· Guest1:16
Well, I read the story when it was first published in the magazine, and I read the interview that accompanied it. And, you know, I'm interested in all things Zadie Smith. I'm, like, a big fan.