As I stood on my uncle’s porch a few miles north of Port-au-Prince, a quiet darkness descended over the town. Feeble streetlights struggled to illuminate the features of passers-by whose friendly greetings floated towards us. The veil of Night was thick as a burlap sack now and filled with crumbling charcoal. The street-lamps sputtered then took their light away, leaving the air shrouded in the blackest shade of black. I could not see my own hand: my skin had so fused with the sable night. I could not see my uncle standing a few inches from me, but somehow he knew the name of a silhouette making its…

Dan Wakefield is a novelist, journalist and screenwriter whose best-selling novels Going All The Way and Starting Over were produced as feature films; he created the NBC prime time TV series “James at 15.” A documentary film has been produced of his memoir New York in the Fifties. Most recently,  Dan edited Kurt Vonnegut: Letters (Delacorte Press, $35.00) named one of the best books of the year by Newsweek/The Daily Beast and The Kansas City Star.  Here are the author’s 5 favorite books of all time: The Razor’s Edge by William Somerset Maugham is the greatest novel of “the spiritual quest.” A good movie was done of it in the ‘forties…

You know the Carla Bruni song, right? C’est le tréma qui m’ensorcelle dans le prénom de Raphaël… Well, meet Raphael Sagage. His art—a reflection of the beauty in the world, an intermingling of the natural colors and movements around us.  A graduate from Ecole Nationale des Arts or ENARTS (Port-au-Prince, Haiti), Raphael has received several awards, including the United Nations Best Artist Award, in New York. First, read my interview with the artist here. Later, go ahead and visit his website or Facebook page. MJ: How did you become an artist? Raphael: I was born an artist. My mother, who saw potential in me early on, gave me…