Edwidge Danticat: A Reader's Guide

by Martin Munro, Dany Laferrière (Foreword)

Offering an accessible guide for readers and critics alike, this book is the first publication devoted entirely to Danticat's unique and remarkable work. It is also distinctive in that it addresses all of her published writing up to The Dew Breaker (2004), including her writing for children, her travel writing, her short fiction, and her novels.The book contains an exclusive interview with Danticat, in which she discusses her recent memoir Brother, I'm Dying (2007), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. It also includes an extensive bibliography.

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Aurora · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, I was going to run back to the library (okay, drive) and return it the minute I read the back cover and skimmed the chapters. But after skimming and marking each chapter, I came to realize how important this book is to the people involved with it. I just finished it and am now reluctant to return it. I can't say enough good things about it. If you have never read any of Edwidfe Danticat's work, I STRONGLY recommend reading this book before you do. It will open your mind to her work in a way that those of us who have already read her work have been deprived of when her books appeared. The marketing campaigns are always in such a rush to make dollars and could care less what makes sense to you as the reader. This book teaches you how to read her work, that her voice is individual, and is so much more than a nationality, an experience you share, or an identity. I plan on sharing this with my book club. It is called #bookclubayiti. I originally intended for this year to be a year of cultural growth and inspiration because as my parents get older, and the elders of my family leave this earth one by one, I am left with a little less of my history. I not only recommend this book if you would like to know more about this author, but to meet other Haitian authors who are not marketed but have an equally important voice in the arts. I also recommend this book if you have already read books by Edwidge Danticat and find yourself curious about what you just read.

[Purple Iris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way Munro started the introduction, the use of the bookstore image to ask the question: how would you classify Danicat's work? Where would you put it in the bookstore. And the guide does go about answering that question in different ways. I remain wary of the idea that Danticat, or any writer for that matter,is beyond classification. It's simply not true, although we may choose to ignore certain classificatons at times. There is one sentence in the intro (on p. 4)that really bothers me: "While this in-between situation may be seen as a loss of identity for Danticat (as for many other exiled authors), it is also a kind of liberation in that she is free from many of the constraints and expectations that direct, unambiguous attachments bring." Munro himself acknowledges that Danticat does not consider herself to be an exile. She can and does go "home" whenever she wants. Having said that, I really enjoyed the biography. It was very well written and informative.

I don't have much to say on the chapter on Danticat and her Haitian precursors. There was nothing I objected strongly to, but nothing that wowed me either.

I really liked Mardorossian's chapter, although it didn't really contain anything new. I guess I just like her writing. "[Danticat] thus deliberately develops a 'poetics of location' in which one's privileging of a particular and 'coherent' cultural space does not hiner Relation but provides the very condition for it. In this process of identification, the opposition between nation and transnationalism dissolves to reveal the inextricable imbrication of the two" (p. 47). Yes! I wish more critics would realize this.

I was wondering how Jean-Charles would manage the African American chapter. It seemed like the trickiest one to me. I think she pulled it off well enough and I especially liked the last section of that chapter.

I have to say that Nesbitt's chapter really annoyed me. For several reasons. First, this idea that "the personal" only appeared in Haitian literature starting with Marie Chauvet is kind of ridiculous. I've read Lahens' argument and I don't find it all that convincing, so it really bothers me when people keep repeating it without any real questioning. And don't even get me started on the fact that it's somehow exclusive to women. Big eye roll. What really bothered me about this chapter, though, was the heavy-handed focus on the political. Yes, there is a political dimension to Danticat's work, but are we talking about literature or journalism here? If this is supposed to be literary analysis, I'd like to see some ideas about the actual writing of the text, not just how it fits into global politics. I think it's kind of insulting to the writer to only discuss the politics of her work.

Thank goodness for Kiera Vaclavik's chapter. It was such a pleasure to read. Really. It made me happy in the way that straightforward, solid literary analysis does. And it reminded me that I really should read Danticat's fiction for younger audiences, especially since my daughter is reading anything she can get her hands on. It'll be time to turn her on to Edwidge soon.

I did not enjoy the chapter on Breath, Eyes, Memory. It really bothers me that the author chooses to write about rape as though it is all that matters in the book. The story is definitely about that, but is also about so much else. Just an aside, the footnotes in this section are completely screwy. That was kind of distracting.

I enjoyed reading Chancy's chapter on The Farming of Bones. Her writing was smart, as usual and this is my favorite Danticat novel so far. I was disappointed with the last part of the chapter, though. I'm not quite sure why. I think I was annoyed with the idealistic spin she tried to put on Haiti/DR relations. My favorite part of this chapter was the critique of the whole history is over movement, because "the inhabitants of the former colonized nations are often forced to live in conditions that duplicate or mimic those of earlier centuries; for them, historyis not over but is frozen in constant replaly" (p. 132)

I really liked Gallagher's chapter on The Dew Breaker, especially the questioning of genre and the exploration of the different sites of rupture in the work.

The translationsfor this book are not the best. I did not love Conde's piece at all. The constant references to Martinican literature and culture as a way to understand Danticat really annoyed me. She says "we belong to countries [...] Aime Cesaire, [...] founding father of our literature [...]" (p. 163). Now, I love me some Cesaire. But there were so many Haitian writers before him. How can he be the founding father of "our" literature? Why is Madison Smart Bell described as an African American writer? That really threw me. and made me laugh. He'd probably like that.

I love love loved the interview. Just loved it.

Overall, a really good book. I can't say it was amazing because if you already read, teach, study Danticat, I'm not sure this will offer anything new, but it was definitely enjoyable.

[Eilidh Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful for anyone studying Danticat's works