Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Danticat, Edwidge (Vol. 94) - Garry Pierre-Pierre (essay date 26 January 1995)

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Garry Pierre-Pierre (essay date 26 January 1995)

SOURCE: "Haitian Tales, Flatbush Scenes," in The New York Times, January 26, 1995, pp. C1, C8.

[In the following essay, based on discussions with Danticat, Pierre-Pierre examines her past in Haiti and her present life as a Haitian-American living in Brooklyn.]

It was the kind of dark, cold New York winter day that sundrenched people from the Caribbean dread. But Edwidge Danticat, a 25-year-old Haitian-American novelist who immigrated to Brooklyn a little more than a dozen years ago, would not let it dampen her spirits.

"You want some coffee, tea?" she said in a soft melodic voice, as if the liquids would warm the day. "The tea is cannelle."

So Ms. Danticat (her name is pronounced ed-WEEDJ dahn-tee-CAH), the author of Breath, Eyes, Memory, her first novel, which was published by Soho Press last spring and received respectful reviews, set small flowered, ceramic cups on a...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Mary Mackay (review date Fall 1994)
   2. Garry Pierre-Pierre (essay date 26 January 1995)
   3. Richard Eder (review date 30 March 1995)
   4. Joanne Omang (review date 14 May 1995)
   5. Paul Moses (essay date 21 May 1995)
   6. Kimberly Hébert (review date June 1995)
   7. Jordana Hart (review date 19 July 1995)
   8. Edwidge Danticat with Renée H. Shea (interview date Summer 1995)
4. Copyright

1. Edwidge Danticat