"People think that there is a country there that these people are only around when they are on CNN. I don't think that's limited to Haiti." -- Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat (; born January 19, 1969) is an Haitian-American author.
"Also, people are not often aware of the way the United States' policies influence what happens in places like Haiti or El Salvador or Nicaragua. Or in Columbia right now.""And the fact that Haiti was occupied for 19 years by the United States, from 1915 to 1934.""Creating these messes that go from administration to administration and then you swoop in and clean them up - with that heroic Delta force - people not realizing that they were always there but doing different things than what we see them doing at the moment.""Especially moments when things are very difficult and complicated for me and I am still trying to grasp what is happening and I am still trying to understand and to reach family back home.""I think daily that the country's future is being thrown to the wind.""I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when It's at its extreme. And that's what they end up knowing about it.""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.""In fact that is the struggle that most Americans - As rich as this country is, most Americans are very limited in their interaction with the world, unless the world comes to us in a very shocking way.""In Haiti you had the Duvaliers for 29 years and they were very well supported by the United States.""In terms of the idea of long-term occupation - I have been reading a little bit more about this period - and you can see in that occupation are many lessons for the current occupation of Iraq. So we have these connections that go way back that people aren't aware of.""More and more people are able to access information - thank goodness we have the Internet and if you are interested you can find things. Which is different than even 20 years ago.""Napoleon had been fighting this army of slaves and free people in Haiti and it depleted his forces. And after the Revolution, when the French were driven out, they stopped and sold this big chunk of North America to the Americans for very little money.""On some level, now, we are joining the larger world and realizing that we are connected with people in these very scary ways, sometimes. What happened recently in Spain affects us here and brings questions up. It is too bad that people have to be shaken up in that way.""On some levels, you can also have this feeling that we are being duped, somehow. And that the world is at play for something you would understand more if it were pure ideology. It is a very strange time and also basic things are being taken away.""Or even the state of Florida, where they are prepared to execute children. Umm, well, you hope that at least that there is something there to be claimed.""People aren't really aware of what's happening in other places.""People who want alternative information have to try so hard to find it.""Someone has said that nations have interests, they don't have friends, and you see that over and over in U.S. policy.""That's whatever news topic, whatever political process any country is going through - whenever they are in the news, that's when they exist. If you don't see them they don't exist.""There is a frustration too, that at moments when there's not a coup, when there are not people in the streets, that the country disappears from people's consciousness.""To start with, for example this year, 2004, is the bicentennial of Haitian independence.""You have all these people in the city and everything has become centralized. If you live outside the city and you need a birth certificate or some official paper from the government, you have to travel to the city."
Danticat was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. When she was two years old, her father André emigrated to New York, to be followed two years later by her mother Rose. This left Danticat and her younger brother Eliab to be raised by her aunt and uncle. Although her formal education in Haiti was in French, she spoke Haitian Kréyòl at home.
While still in Haiti, Danticat wrote her first short story about a girl who was visited by a clan of women each night. At the age of 12, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, to join her parents in a heavily Haitian American neighborhood. As she was an immigrant teenager, Edwidge's accent and upbringing were a source of discomfort for her, thus she turned to literature for solace. Two years later she published her first writing, in English, "A Haitian-American Christmas: Cremace and Creole Theatre," in New Youth Connections, a citywide magazine written by teenagers. She later wrote a story about her immigration experience for New Youth Connections, "A New World Full of Strangers." In the introduction to Starting With I, an anthology of stories from the magazine, Danticat wrote, “When I was done with the [immigration] piece, I felt that my story was unfinished, so I wrote a short story, which later became a book, my first novel: Breath, Eyes, Memory. Writing for New Youth Connections had given me a voice. My silence was destroyed completely, indefinitely.”
Career
After graduating from Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, New York, Danticat entered Barnard College in New York City. Initially she had intended on studying to become a teacher, but her love of writing won out and she received a BA in French literature. In 1993, she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Brown University—her thesis, titled "My turn in the fire - an abridged novel", was the basis for her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory, which was published by Soho Press in 1994. Four years later it became an Oprah's Book Club selection.
Since completing her MFA, Danticat has taught creative writing at both New York University and the University of Miami. She has also worked with filmmakers Patricia Benoit and Jonathan Demme on projects on Haitian art and documentaries about Haïti. Her short stories have appeared in over 25 periodicals and have been anthologized several times. Her work has been translated into numerous other languages including French, Korean, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish.
Danticat is a strong advocate for issues affecting Haitians abroad and at home. In 2009, she lent her voice and words to Poto Mitan: Haitian Women Pillars of the Global Economy, a documentary about the impact of globalizaton on five women from different generations.
Danticat is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Pushcart Short Story Prize for "Between the Pool and the Gardenias"
National Book Award nomination for Krik? Krak!
1996 Best Young American Novelists for Breath, Eyes, Memory by GRANTA
Lila-Wallace-Reader's Digest Grant
1999 American Book Award for The Farming of the Bones
The International Flaiano Prize for literature
The Super Flaiano Prize for The Farming of the Bones
2005 The Story Prize for "The Dew Breaker"
2007 The National Book Critics Circle Award for "Brother, I'm Dying"
2008 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for "Brother, I'm Dying"
2009 MacArthur Fellows Program Genius grant
Danticat has also won fiction awards from Essence and Seventeen Magazines, was named "1 of 20 people in their twenties who will make a difference" in Harper's Bazaar, was featured in New York Times Magazine as one of "30 under 30" people to watch, and was called one of the "15 Gutsiest Women of the Year" by Jane Magazine.
