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Edwidge Danticat Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat

How to pronounce Edwidge Danticat: Edweedje Danticah

Edwidge Danticat Biography

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Brother, I'm Dying, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, The Art of Death, Everything Inside, a Reese's Book Club selection and National Book Critics Circle Awards winner. She is also the editor of The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir, and Haiti Noir 2. She has written seven books for children and young adults: Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama's Nightingale, Untwine, My Mommy Medicine, and a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow, a 2018 Ford Foundation "Art of Change" fellow, the winner of the 2018 Neustadt International Prize, the 2019 St. Louis Literary Award, the 2011 Bocas Nonfiction Prize and 2020 Bocas Fiction Prize, the 2020 Vilcek Prize for Literature, a 2020 United States Artists Fellow, a two-time winner of The Story Prize, and the 2023 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Her essay collection, We're Alone, was published in September 2024. She teaches at Columbia University.



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Interview

In two separate interviews, Edwidget Danticat discusses issues raised in her novels, The Dew Breaker and Breath, Eyes, Memory; including the nature of love and forgiveness and the immigrant experience.

Two separate interviews with Edwidge Danticat in which she discusses The Dew Breaker and Breath, Eyes, Memory.

A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat about The Dew Breaker

Q: Can you tell us about the title of your new book The Dew Breaker?
A: The title is my English translation of a Creole expression "choukèt laroze," which during the twenty-nine year period (1957-1986) that Haiti was ruled by the father and son dictators, François "Papa Doc" and Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, referred to a rural chief, a brutal regional leader and sometime torturer. I have always been fascinated by the poetic naming of such a despicable authority figure and when I started writing about a former torturer, I decided to translate the expression in the most serene sounding way I could. And so we have the dew breaker. I could have chosen several other ways to translate this, the dew shaker, the dew stomper, for example, but I like the way the words dew breaker echo the American expression ball breaker, which is a more fitting label for these kinds of people.

Q: Why did you decide to structure the telling of the book in the way that you do? Do you feel that this book represents a departure from your previous works? If...

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Books by this Author

Books by Edwidge Danticat at BookBrowse
We're Alone jacket Everything Inside jacket The Art of Death jacket Untwine jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Edwidge Danticat but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Leila Aboulela

    Leila Aboulela

    Leila Aboulela won the first Caine Prize for African Writing and is the author of many novels. Minaret was longlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize. The Translator was one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year. ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Everything Inside

    Try:
    Elsewhere Home
    by Leila Aboulela

  • Daniel Alarcon

    Daniel Alarcon

    Born in Lima, Peru in 1977, Alarcón was raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He is Associate Editor of Etiqueta Negra, an award-winning magazine published in his native Peru, and in 2013 served as a Fellow in the Investigative... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Everything Inside

    Try:
    The King Is Always Above the People
    by Daniel Alarcon

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