Haiti through the eyes of a writer

Tue, 01/19/2010 - 3:52pm by Maxine

When all feels hopeless, we can still appreciate the contributions of Haitian born writers and artists including Edwidge Danticat who was born on this day in 1969 in Port-au-Prince. Danticat was born toward the end of Duvalier's brutal regime. Her parents emigrated to the U.S. and she was raised by an aunt in Haiti until she was sent to New York when she was 12. She felt awkward and out of place, torn between traditional roles for women and a need to break free. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory is the story of a girl like her who travels back to Haiti from New York to make peace with a troubled past. Her novel, The Farming of Bones won the National Book Award. And her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying describes the struggles of her family, in particular, her uncle's harsh treatment and death at a U.S. immigration detention center.