Edwidge Danticat: The Voice of a Nation

I hope that the extraordinary female story tellers I grew up with – the ones that have passed on – will choose to tell their story through my voice…for those who have a voice must speak to the present and the past.  For we may very well have to be Haiti’s last surviving breath, eyes, and memory.

~Edwidge Danticat (Winters)

Last semester I was introduced to the Haitian writer, Edwidge Danticat, while reading Breath, Eyes, Memories as a course requirement for Dr. Gretchen Mieszkowski’s Women In Literature Course.  It was the first book I had read in a long time that conjured such powerful emotions in me.  I found myself weeping with the protagonist and becoming angry over the issues that angered her.  I was so touched by the novel I read that I was excited to see that we were going to read one of her shorter works for this class (“Children of the Sea”).  My goal for this research report was to find out more about her.  In researching Danticat’s biography I have accomplished my goal and more; I have been inspired by Danticat’s motivation and determination.

To begin, the proper pronunciation of Edwidge Danticat is “Ed-weedj Dan-ti-kah” (Contemporary Authors Online).  She was born January 19,1969 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  She is the “daughter of André Miracin (a cab driver) and Rose Souvenance (a textile worker) Danticat” (Contemporary Authors).  Interesting to note are the conditions in Haiti.  According to Dr. Mieszkowski, Haiti was a failed state and no Haitian leader ever made anything better.  The country has had no protection from 200 years of bad government, and illnesses such as malaria are rampant.  An alarming 80% of the countryside population is illiterate and adult illiteracy is 50%.  Perhaps this is due to the fact that school fees are the equivalent of two months salary for the poor.  Essentially, Haiti has been raped and pillaged.  It is no wonder that Danticat’s parents sought to find a way out and fled to the United States when Danticat was four years old.

In 1981, at the age of twelve, Danticat was reunited with her parents in New York.  As a twelve-year-old immigrant, she suffered much abuse from her schoolmates.  She arrived in America with no knowledge of the English language as French was her native language in Haiti, and her school mates made fun of her accent, her hairstyle and her style of dress, so her only solace was Literature.  Despite her parents’ desire for her become a nurse, Danticat preferred writing, and two years after her arrival, she published her first work – in English! (Wikipedia)

Danticat obtained her Bachelors degree from Barnard College in 1990 and her Masters degree from Brown University in 1993 and taught creative writing at New York University and the University of Miami.  She later published her thesis for Brown University as a novel known as Breath, Eyes, Memory.  This impressive novel “weaves several threads of sexuality, body image, generational bonds and conflicts, the immigrant experience, and the desperate social and political situation in Haiti, to portray a young girl’s coming of age and eventual emotional liberation” (Winters).

Like Breath, Eyes, Memory, Danticat’s other works provide a perspective into Haitian culture.  They include Krik? Krak! (1995), The Farming of Bones (1998), The Dew Breaker (2004), and Anacaona, Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 (2005).  In addition, she has many short stories, such as “Children of the Sea” and “New York Day Woman” that have been widely anthologized.  “Her work has been translated into other languages such as French, Korean, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish” (Wikipedia), and she has won numerous awards.

Clearly, Danticat’s career is a successful one thus far, and she still seems to have a lot left in her.  Her determination and style appeal to me, even inspire me, as a future educator.  It is my desire to read more of Danticat’s masterpieces and, someday, teach them, because I believe that she is an important writer on many fronts.  As Margaria Fichtner says in the Contemporary Literary Criticism – Select database, Danticat is a writer whose “’work has much to say about what it is like to be young, black, Haitian, and female wandering in a world too often eager to regard all of those conditions as less than worthwhile.’”

Works Cited

"Edwidge Danticat." Contemporary Literary Criticism-Select 23 March 2006

            <http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=txshr

            acd2588&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=2&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U13022225

            &n=10&docNum=H1106090000&ST=danticat&bConts=16047>.

"Edwidge Danticat." Contemporary Authors Online, Thomason Gale (2005)

 23 March 2006 <http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=

contains&locID=txshracd2588&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst

=arp&ai=U13022225&n=10&docNum=H1000120012&ST=danticat&bCont

s=16047>.

"Edwidge Danticat." Wikipedia. 2006. 2 May 2006.  Retrieved from

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwidge_danticat

Mackay, Mary. ""Breath, Eyes, Memory"." Belles Lettres. Vol. 10, No. 1Fall, 1994 36. 23 March 2006 <http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=

contains&locID=txshracd2588&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=12&ste=16&stab=51

2&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai=U13022225&n=10&docNum=H1420031064&ST=d

anticat&bConts=16047>.

Mackay, Mary. ""Breath, Eyes, Memory"." Publisher's Weekly Vol. 241, No.424 January 1994 39. 23 March 2006 <http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitRC?

vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=txshracd2588&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=13&ste=

16&stab=512&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai=U13022225&n=10&docNum=H142003

1065&ST=danticat&bConts=16047>.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. "Edwidge Danticat." Women In Literature Course.

University of Houston-Clear Lake Classroom, Houston, TX.. Fall 2005.

Winters, Kelly. "Overview of "Breath,Eyes, Memory"." Literature of Developing Nations for Students Vol. 1, The Gale Group.(2000) 23 March 2006

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            acd2588&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=11&ste=16&stab=512&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai

            =U13022225&n=10&docNum=H1420031063&ST=danticat&bConts=1604

            7>.

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