A dream come true
Dïana Bélice knew from the age of 9 that one day she would be an author. At the time, the girl of Haitian origin loved to read and write. One thing, however, was wrong with the stories she devoured. “When I read books, there was never a character who looked like me,” she recalls. When I started writing for young people, I said to myself that I wanted to make sure to present characters from diversity. This mission, however, was more difficult to accomplish than she would have thought. Early in her career, in 2013, she found publishers reluctant to publish books with black heroes. Some publishers feared that readers would not recognize themselves in her characters, she wonders. Since 2020, however, she has felt a wind of change. A craze for its protagonists of varied origins which, according to her, stems from a sad event: the death of the American George Floyd. “With his death, it seems that people have realized that, my god, it exists for real, racism. […] Now, novels on diversity, we want them. »
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
The Happiness Squad, volume 2
A character that looks like him
In volume 2 of her series L’escouade du bonheur, Dïana Bélice makes her main character live “one of the most traumatic experiences of racism in [son] childhood “. In a bus, Lilou gives up her seat to an old lady. However, before sitting down on the bench, she disinfects it under the flabbergasted gaze of the teenager. “It was something that I kept with me for a very long time. […] When I started writing Lilou’s story, I said to myself: “Now is the time.” It was my way of freeing myself, ”says the author. If she brought this moment from her youth to life for this very shy student but with her heart on her sleeve, it’s surely because Lilou looks a lot like her. “She and I are the same,” she confirms. And it’s not just because of skin color. “In literature, we are presented with a lot of characters who are strong, who speak loudly, who are go-getters,” underlines the writer, who rather wanted to put forward an introverted heroine.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
For you to come back
The voice of the flayed
Giving a voice to those who, according to her, are less represented in children’s literature, this is also what Dïana Bélice does in her book For you to come back. In this novel, she tells the story of friendship that unites Izobel and Elijah, two young people living in a public housing project and whose life is punctuated by trials: dysfunctional family, poverty, sexual assault, violence… “I had a lot adversity also in life and I thought it was a way of demonstrating that, despite everything we face, we can get up again,” says the author.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Dust, Book 1 of The Day the Earth Shake series
Telling about the Haiti earthquake
Dïana Bélice was not in Haiti when a powerful earthquake shook the country in 2010. The terrible event which claimed more than 200,000 victims still marked her greatly. “I have family who went through it, and it really traumatized me. Even though I wasn’t there, seeing the footage, hearing the panic calls, not being able to be there to do anything, it really picked me up. She felt the need to write about the tragedy. Thus was born the series The day the earth trembled, the first volume of which, Dust, was released in January. We follow the characters of Cornélie, 13, and her friends leaving school on January 12, 2010, a day that will change their lives forever.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
The two volumes of the Militant duology.
A future we wish to avoid
The Militant duology, whose two volumes transport the reader to a world marked by climate change, also makes its hero experience a major event, but this time fictitious. While torrential rains cause deadly landslides in Montreal, Mathis meets a strange entity that pushes him to play a decisive role in the environmental fight. “I wanted to talk about the environment, because it’s important, but I wanted to do it in a way that fun “, explains the author. With its many twists and turns, the series looks like an action movie. “Every time I write a book, it’s like watching a movie or listening to a show. I always write with this idea in mind, ”says Dïana Bélice, who would soon like to do screenwriting.
Who is Diana Bélice?
- Dïana Bélice is a children’s author of Haitian origin born in Montreal in the 1980s.
- After studying psychology, criminology and clinical intervention, she worked with young people who lived through sexual exploitation by street gangs.
- Her first novel, girls for sale, published in 2013, dealt with sexual exploitation. She has published more than twenty children’s novels.