Marlene Daut Returns to Storytelling
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While I was reading Marlene Daut's new book, The First and Last King of Haiti, in preparation for this week's podcast, the news came out that she was a co-winner of the 2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize—for her last book, Awakening the Ashes! It's impressive enough to have two books come out in less than two years, and even more impressive when those books are as monumental as these are.
I couldn't resist asking my most burning question: um, how did you do that? But I was also delighted to find that while Dr. Daut is a brilliant historian, she's also a thoughtful—not to mention relatable—writer. She talked about how she worked on two projects at once, and how having two books in the works actually freed her to focus the narrative in each of them. She also shared some of the quirks of her own process, from saving five or six drafts a day to furiously typing into her phone in the grocery store.
If you haven't already, check out our conversation in Episode 59.
