Profile: Edwidge Danticat

BlackReader.com has a nice little bio on one of my favorite writers. I think she is one of the best and the most likely to succeed Toni Morrison and Alice Walker in receiving a Pulitzer or a Nobel Prize. While Krik Krak was a collection of short stories, Breath, Eyes, Memory was her first novel and I was blown away by her style and mastery of words.

Edwidge Danticat was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti January 19, 1969. When she was two years old, her father André emigrated from Haiti to New York, to be followed two years later by her mother Rose, leaving the young Danticat to be raised by her aunt and uncle. It was during these years that she was exposed to the Haitian practice of storytelling. "Krik?" called Edwidge's aunts and grandmothers. "Krak!" would answer the little girl until the stories became her own.

It would be these memories of Haiti combined with her deep love for all things Haitian that would influence her writing both in style and content. While in Haiti, Danticat wrote her first short story about a girl who was visited by a clan of women each night. Although her formal education in Haiti was in French, she always spoke Haitian Creole at home.

At the age of 12, English would become her third language when she moved to Brooklyn to join her parents. Because of her French/Creole accent and Haitian upbringing, she never quite felt like she fit in, and turned to books as a source of solace. Ironically it would be the same unique blend of language that she was teased for in school that would make her writing compelling and powerful. Despite her challenges as an immigrant, Danticat has always been proud of her origin.

When Danticat entered Barnard College, she had decided to train as a nurse, but her ambition to write would win out and she went on to receive her BA in French literature. She continued with her education and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at Brown University, where as her thesis she wrote Breath, Eyes, Memory (Soho Press, 1994). This novel speaks of four generations of Haitian women who must overcome their poverty and powerlessness. The following year, she published Krik? Krak! (Soho Press, 1995), a collection of short stories about Haiti and Haitian-Americans longing for political freedoms and democracy. Krik? Krak! was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1995.

In an interview for NPR, Danticat said this of her book: "I wanted to raise the voice of a lot of the people that I knew growing up, and this was, for the most part, ... poor people who had extraordinary dreams but also very amazing obstacles." (NPR) Since completing her Masters Degree, she has taught creative writing at New York University, and the University of Miami and has worked with filmmakers Patricia Benoit and Jonathan Demme on projects on Haitian art and documentaries about Haiti.

I was thrilled when Oprah chose Breath, Eyes, Memory as her book club selection because I know exactly what she saw in the book. And, I agree with Oprah that Edwidge is "just so cute."