Edwidge Danticat
Author of Breath, Eyes, Memory
About the Author
Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti in 1969 and came to America at age twelve to live with her parents in Brooklyn. She studied French literature at Barnard College and received her M.F.A. from Brown University. Her work has achieved both popular and critical acclaim. Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), show more her first novel and master's thesis, garnered Danticat a Granta Regional Award for Best Young American Novelist and was chosen as an Oprah Book Club selection, a singular honor. Her collection of short stories Krik? Krak! (1995) was nominated for the National Book Award. Along with awards for fiction from Seventeen and Essence and the 1995 Pushcart Short Story Prize, Danticat was chosen by Harper's Bazaar as "one of 20 people in their twenties who will make a difference," and by the New York Times Magazine as one of "30 Under 30" people to watch. Her second novel, The Farming of Bones (1998), concerns a massacre in Haiti in 1937. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: http://www.dentontaylor.com
Works by Edwidge Danticat
The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States (2001) — Editor — 70 copies, 1 review
Encuentros 2 copies
Ghosts 2 copies
كاسر الندى 1 copy
Are You Down? {essay} 1 copy
Without Inspection 1 copy
Danticat, Edwidge Archive 1 copy
Associated Works
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race (2016) — Contributor — 1,028 copies, 32 reviews
The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories (1999) — Contributor — 394 copies, 5 reviews
The Norton Anthology of African American Literature {2nd edition} (2003) — Contributor, some editions — 283 copies, 2 reviews
Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation (2017) — Contributor — 229 copies, 7 reviews
New York Stories [Everyman's Library Pocket Classics] (2011) — Contributor, some editions — 199 copies, 5 reviews
Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process (2017) — Contributor — 165 copies, 5 reviews
The Decameron Project: 29 New Stories from the Pandemic (2020) — Contributor — 160 copies, 5 reviews
The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction (2008) — Contributor — 140 copies, 2 reviews
Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967 to the Present (1995) — Contributor — 127 copies
New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent (2019) — Contributor — 116 copies, 1 review
On the Wings of Peace: Writers and Illustrators Speak Out for Peace, in Memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1995) — Contributor — 105 copies, 1 review
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns (2019) — Foreword; Contributor — 96 copies
Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing (2018) — Contributor — 95 copies
Eat Joy: Stories and Comfort Food from 31 Celebrated Writers (2019) — Contributor — 84 copies, 3 reviews
On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library (2021) — Contributor — 83 copies, 1 review
Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers (2019) — Contributor — 59 copies, 13 reviews
Shaking the Tree: A Collection of Fiction and Memoir by Black Women (2003) — Contributor — 54 copies
The Good Book: Writers Reflect on Favorite Bible Passages (2015) — Contributor — 44 copies, 3 reviews
Daughters of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writing by Latine Women (2023) — Contributor — 40 copies, 1 review
The Word: Black Writers Talk About the Transformative Power of Reading and Writing (2011) — Contributor — 35 copies, 2 reviews
Stories from Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad (2006) — Contributor — 32 copies
Becoming American: Personal Essays By First Generation Immigrant Women (2000) — Contributor — 29 copies
I Still Believe Anita Hill: Three Generations Discuss the Legacies of Speaking Truth to Power (2012) — Contributor — 23 copies, 1 review
The Artists' and Writers' Cookbook: A Collection of Stories with Recipes (2016) — Contributor — 19 copies
Brown Sugar 4: Secret Desires: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction (2005) — Contributor — 16 copies
Democracy in Print: The best of the Progressive Magazine, 1909-2009 (2009) — Contributor — 15 copies
The Bluelight Corner: Black Women Writing on Passion, Sex, and Romantic Love (1998) — Contributor — 10 copies
The Shape of Water [2006 film] — Contributor — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1969-01-19
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Barnard College (BA|1990|French literature)
Brown University (MFA|1993|Creative writing) - Occupations
- author
essayist
novelist
short story writer
teacher
Professor of the Humanities (Columbia University) - Organizations
- New York University (instructor, creative writing)
University of Miami (instructor, creative writing)
Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation (recipient of on-going grant) - Awards and honors
- One of "20 people in their twenties who will make a difference" (Harpers Bazaar)
One of "30 under 30" people to watch (New York Times magazine)
One of the "15 Gutsiest Women of the Year" (Jane magazine)
Woman of Achievement Award (1995 ∙ Barnard College)
Lannan Literary Fellowship (2004)
Benjamin H. Danks Award (Fiction ∙ 2005) (show all 9)
Granta's Best Of Young American Novelists (1996)
Neustadt International Prize for Literature (2018)
MacArthur Fellow (2009) - Short biography
- Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti in 1969. She came to the United States when she was twelve years old and, only two years later, published her first writings in English. She holds an undergraduate degree is in French literature from Barnard College and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Brown Unversity. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
Edwidge Danticat's short stories have appeared in 25 periodicals. She won a 1995 Pushcart Short Story Prize as well as fiction awards from several magazines. In addition to her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, winning wide acclaim, her book of short stories, Krik? Krak!, was chosen as a National Book Award finalist in 1995. - Nationality
- Haiti
USA - Birthplace
- Port-au-Prince, Haiti
- Places of residence
- Brooklyn, New York, New York, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Brooklyn, New York, New York, USA
Members
Reviews
Ellie (mirrordrum) had recommended I read Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, after I'd enjoyed other Danticat books, and that was a good call. This apparently was her debut novel, set in Haiti and New York City.
"I come from a place where breath, eyes and memory are one, a place where you carry your past like the hair on your head,'' says our narrator Sophie Caco. The child of rape by an unknown father, she lives with her Tante Atie in a small town in Haiti while her mother sends back show more money to help them from NYC. The book revolves around family expectations and how to survive them intact, including that daughters remain virginal. Sophie, her mother and grandmother, and Tante Atie, all experience traumatic practices that have been passed down from generation to generation.
At 12 years old, Sophie joins her mother Martine in New York, and both try to reconcile and escape past tragedy. There is sadness in the story, but also beauty, including the bucolic life in Haiti and the struggles of immigrants to make it in New York. Sophie faces many challenges, and is relentlessly observant. Danticat has a graceful, hypnotic prose style, and this is one of her best. show less
"I come from a place where breath, eyes and memory are one, a place where you carry your past like the hair on your head,'' says our narrator Sophie Caco. The child of rape by an unknown father, she lives with her Tante Atie in a small town in Haiti while her mother sends back show more money to help them from NYC. The book revolves around family expectations and how to survive them intact, including that daughters remain virginal. Sophie, her mother and grandmother, and Tante Atie, all experience traumatic practices that have been passed down from generation to generation.
At 12 years old, Sophie joins her mother Martine in New York, and both try to reconcile and escape past tragedy. There is sadness in the story, but also beauty, including the bucolic life in Haiti and the struggles of immigrants to make it in New York. Sophie faces many challenges, and is relentlessly observant. Danticat has a graceful, hypnotic prose style, and this is one of her best. show less
"Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I've always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them. Coming from where I come from, with the history I have - having spent the first twelve years of my life under both dictatorships of Papa Doc and his son, Jean-Claude - this is what I've always seen as the unifying principle among all show more writers."
What a powerful way to look at being a writer!
Create Dangerously is Edwidge Danticat's collection of essays about her Haitian roots She struggles internally with living in the U.S. and writing about Haiti, even though her roots are strong and her trips back seemingly frequent. She sees a duty to write, and the alternative unthinkable, but nonetheless is "anguished by my own sense of guilt." The guilt seems to stem from her ability to live well elsewhere, and benefit from her writing, while so many in her country suffer. Yet she sees her duty as bearing witness to them, and her country.
The book begins with the 1964 firing squad executions of CIA-supported Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin, who had hoped to overthrow Papa Doc. Her fascination with those two, and the way they are remembered in Haiti, threads throughout the book. They both had lived comfortably elsewhere, but came back to help Haiti. Exile, diaspora, and return, are central themes in the book. Her passion is compelling on every page. When she returns to Haiti, her visits are vivid for the reader. For example, she (arduously) and her cousin and uncle (easily) climb a picturesque mountain and visit her aunt in an isolated remote village that is filled with daily beauty and small miracles, e.g. making coffee, grinding corn, the noisy hens and roosters. She re-enters peaceful rural life, and for a while, the country's turmoil is forgotten.
She is so transparent here, this book is like talking to her directly. She has a profound mind, and gave me many new perspectives on Haiti (including the 2010 earthquake) and Haitians. Many thanks to Ellie for sending this my way. show less
What a powerful way to look at being a writer!
Create Dangerously is Edwidge Danticat's collection of essays about her Haitian roots She struggles internally with living in the U.S. and writing about Haiti, even though her roots are strong and her trips back seemingly frequent. She sees a duty to write, and the alternative unthinkable, but nonetheless is "anguished by my own sense of guilt." The guilt seems to stem from her ability to live well elsewhere, and benefit from her writing, while so many in her country suffer. Yet she sees her duty as bearing witness to them, and her country.
The book begins with the 1964 firing squad executions of CIA-supported Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin, who had hoped to overthrow Papa Doc. Her fascination with those two, and the way they are remembered in Haiti, threads throughout the book. They both had lived comfortably elsewhere, but came back to help Haiti. Exile, diaspora, and return, are central themes in the book. Her passion is compelling on every page. When she returns to Haiti, her visits are vivid for the reader. For example, she (arduously) and her cousin and uncle (easily) climb a picturesque mountain and visit her aunt in an isolated remote village that is filled with daily beauty and small miracles, e.g. making coffee, grinding corn, the noisy hens and roosters. She re-enters peaceful rural life, and for a while, the country's turmoil is forgotten.
She is so transparent here, this book is like talking to her directly. She has a profound mind, and gave me many new perspectives on Haiti (including the 2010 earthquake) and Haitians. Many thanks to Ellie for sending this my way. show less
his is Danticat's remarkable first novel, a heavy tale of troubled women coming to terms with life's burdens and losses, inevitably passing the seeds of trauma and dysfunction down through the generations, with the best of intentions. Danticat's prose and style are beautiful, making it almost impossible to draw back from the heartache. There are a number of fine reviews on site, although those that criticize the structure, or speculate on how the story may not "work" for "middle class white show more readers" are pretty far off the mark. This is a human story, cultural details notwithstanding, that anyone with a beating heart should find moving. I'd love to sit a couple white male politicians down in a room with good lighting and not let 'em out 'til they've absorbed every last word. show less
I really loved this book; I thought it was beautiful, and I loved all the characters. You know how sometimes people say, "I didn't care about the characters"? I felt as opposite from that as one can. I cared about them so much: Nozias, the fisherman, his daughter Claire Limyè Lanmè--Claire of the Sea Light, Gaëlle the fabric vendor, her husband Laurent, Bernard the radio newswriter, his dear friend Max Junior, Max's father, who runs the school where Claire goes, Louise, the host of the show more gossip program Di Mwen, Flore, a rape survivor, and other, more minor characters. These characters are sometimes in opposition, sometimes do terrible things, and yet their thoughts, feelings, and lives are revealed with such sensitivity and compassion that you'd have to have a heart of stone not to love them.
The language is so clear and vivid; the place comes so alive. I feel like I've stood beside that sea, walked those streets, slept on those beds. Here is the sea:
And here is what it is to be touched, after years of loneliness and grief:
My first experience of this book was of a portion of it--a short-story portion--read on Selected Shorts. The language drew me in, and I listened, transfixed. That story had a terrible, heartbreaking end. This one does not. There are some heartbreaking moments, and some ends for some characters, but the novel overall is as luminous as its title.
And, on a personal note--which should probably not be in a review, but where else can I record this?--there are two pregnancies described in this book, and in both of them are idiosyncratic moments that made me recall vividly moments in my own first pregnancy. It made me wonder if the author, who has two daughters, had experienced similar, or whether those scenes were purely the product of her imagination. I doubt I'll ever know, but the result was a feeling of connection with the author. How strange it must be to realize you've created this connection for people, just by your words and story. show less
The language is so clear and vivid; the place comes so alive. I feel like I've stood beside that sea, walked those streets, slept on those beds. Here is the sea:
People liked to say of the sea that lanmè pa kenbe kras, the sea does not hide dirt. It does not keep secrets. The sea was both hostile and docile, the ultimate trickster. It was as large as it was small, as log as you could claim a portion of it for yourself. You could scatter both ashes and flowers in it. You could take as much as you wanted from it. But it too could take back. You could make love in it and you could surrender to it, and oddly enough, surrendering at sea felt somewhat like surrendering on land, taking a deep breath and simply letting go. You could just as easily lie down in the sea as you might in the woods, and simply fall asleep.
And here is what it is to be touched, after years of loneliness and grief:
He hadn't been kissed by a woman in that way since his wife died, a kiss so pure that it felt like it was polishing him. He felt as though his body had turned to gold. A stream of light was coursing through him, and when he reached up to touch her face, he felt both their bodies expand beyond the size of the room.
And, on a personal note--which should probably not be in a review, but where else can I record this?--there are two pregnancies described in this book, and in both of them are idiosyncratic moments that made me recall vividly moments in my own first pregnancy. It made me wonder if the author, who has two daughters, had experienced similar, or whether those scenes were purely the product of her imagination. I doubt I'll ever know, but the result was a feeling of connection with the author. How strange it must be to realize you've created this connection for people, just by your words and story. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 44
- Also by
- 68
- Members
- 12,831
- Popularity
- #1,827
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 406
- ISBNs
- 281
- Languages
- 13
- Favorited
- 48
