I attended a Haitian church in Providence, Rhode Island that became a second family to me, and I knew some Haitian people on campus as well. I started writing “Children of the Sea” when I was an MFA student at Brown University.
Krik? Krak! opens with “Children of the Sea,” which is told through the perspectives of a man on a boat (bound for Miami) and a woman in Haiti. Below, she answers our questions about craft in the context of her 1996 story collection, Krik? Krak! her most recent novel, Claire of the Sea Light and her stories in progress.
Even with her full schedule of events, Danticat was generous enough to find time for an interview with The Brooklyn Review. Some highlights from her residency include her powerful memorial lecture, A Right to Be Here: Race, Immigration, and My Third Culture Kids, and her participation in a panel with fellow writer, Madeleine Thien. In this capacity, she met with students to discuss politics, immigration, race, ethnicity, and gender. Hess Scholar-in-Residence at Brooklyn College. In March 2018, Danticat was the Robert L. She has taught creative writing at NYU and the University of Miami while continuing, throughout her career, to be a strong advocate for Haitians, immigrants, and women of color. In 2009, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant.ĭanticat has a BA from Barnard College, an MFA from Brown University, and holds honorary degrees from Brooklyn College, Smith College, Yale University, and the University of the West Indies. She has written more than a dozen books, including her debut novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, which was an Oprah Book Club selection, and the memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. As a writer, Edwidge Danticat is revered for her elegant prose and her moving depictions of Haiti and the Haitian diasporic experience.