I have dear friends in South Carolina, folks who made my life there wonderful and meaningful. Two of my children were born there. South Carolina's governor awarded me the highest award for the arts in the state. I was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. I have lived and worked among the folks in Sumter, South Carolina, for so many years. South Carolina has been home, and to be honest, it was easier for me to define myself as a South Carolinian than even as an American.
Kwame DawesThe rich and complex history of South Carolina is the history of the African diaspora, and in many ways, I felt acutely the sense of this collective memory of migration, suffering and transformation while living in South Carolina.
Kwame DawesI am most interested in people. I try to capture their complexity and contradiction and beauty. It does not matter where they are from.
Kwame DawesI think that the kinds of stereotypes that people have about Haitians or about HIV sufferers exist because we don't realize that these are our brothers, our sisters, our aunts and uncles, our neighbors. They are us. And I don't mean that in some metaphorical sense. They are literally us.
Kwame Dawes