Danticat, Edwidge

▪ 2000

      During 1999 the Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat continued to enjoy the benefits of having her work selected by talk-show host Oprah Winfrey for her television book club. From the beginning of her published career, the writer had received notice and honours from the critical community, but when her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) was chosen in June 1998 for Oprah's Book Club, she also gained a wider audience and commercial success.

      Danticat was born on Jan. 19, 1969, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. By the time she was four years old, both of her parents had moved to New York City to find work, leaving the child and her brother behind with an aunt and uncle. She joined her parents in 1981, but with her Creole language and Haitian dress and manners, she found adapting to life and school in the U.S. difficult. Partly as a way of escaping these unpleasant experiences, she continued to write stories, a practice she had started at an early age.

      Although her parents had hoped that their daughter would have a career in medicine, Danticat graduated from Barnard College, New York City, in 1990 with a B.A. in French literature. She worked briefly as a secretary, and then in 1993 she received an M.F.A. degree from Brown University, Providence, R.I. Her master's thesis, a partly autobiographical account of the relationships between several generations of Haitian women, was published as Breath, Eyes, Memory. A collection of short stories, Krik? Krak!, was published in 1995. The collection, which took its title from a call-and-response phrase common in Haitian storytelling, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Other honours for Danticat included the Pushcart Short Story Prize, awards from magazines such as The Caribbean Writer, Seventeen, and Essence, and selection by Granta as one of the 20 best young American writers. Her novel The Farming of Bones, which used as its title the Haitian term for harvesting sugarcane, was published in 1998. The book was set against the background of the massacre of Haitian emigrants by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1937.

      When Winfrey announced that her book club would discuss Breath, Eyes, Memory, the novel received the most effective advertising available to any work of fiction. The book quickly appeared on best-seller lists, and Danticat was soon being read by a large number of people outside the Haitian-American community. In this work, as in her other writings, she demonstrated her concern with the lives of women and with their relationships with each other and with men, as well as with matters of power, injustice, and poverty, all rendered in a lyrical but passionate language that found resonance with a wide readership.

Robert Rauch

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▪ Haitian-American author

born Jan. 19, 1969, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

      Haitian American author whose works focus on the lives of women and their relationships. She also addressed issues of power, injustice, and poverty.

      By the time she was four years old, her mother and father had moved to the United States, leaving Danticat and her brother behind with an aunt and uncle. She joined her parents in 1981, but, with her Creole language and Haitian dress and manners, she found adapting to life and school in the United States difficult. Partly as a way to escape these unpleasant situations, she wrote stories, a practice she had started at an early age.

      Although her parents had hoped that she would have a career in medicine, Danticat graduated from Barnard College in New York City in 1990 with a B.A. in French literature. She worked briefly as a secretary and then in 1993 received an M.F.A. degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Her master's thesis, a partly autobiographical account of the relationships between several generations of Haitian women, was published as Breath, Eyes, Memory in 1994. The following year Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories, was published. The collection, which took its title from a call-and-response phrase common in Haitian storytelling, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her second novel, The Farming of the Bones (1998), used as its title the Haitian term for harvesting cane. It was set against the background of the massacre of Haitian emigrants by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1937.

      Danticat received numerous honours, including the Pushcart Short Story Prize and awards from magazines such as The Caribbean Writer and Essence. In 1998 Breath, Eyes, Memory was picked by talk-show host Oprah Winfrey for her television book club. With the selection, Danticat gained a wider audience and greater commercial success. She continued to explore Haitian history in The Dew Breaker (2004), a series of interconnected stories about a Haitian immigrant who had tortured and murdered dissidents during the repressive rule of Franƈois Duvalier. Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying (2007), won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

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