Edwidge Danticat

A New York Times Notable BookA Miami Herald Best Book of the YearA moving and deeply personal account of art and exile from Edwidge Danticat, winner of two National Book Critics Circle Awards—now with a new preface by the author"Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I've always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them."—Create DangerouslyIn this deeply personal book, the celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and exile, examining what it means to be an immigrant artist from a country in crisis. Inspired by Albert Camus' lecture, "Create Dangerously," and combining memoir and essay, Danticat tells the stories of artists, including herself, who create despite—or because of—the horrors that drove them from their homelands. She writes about the Haitian novelists she first read as a girl at the Brooklyn Public Library, Jean-Michel Basquiat and other artists of Haitian descent, and a renowned Haitian radio journalist whose political assassination shocked the world. She also eulogizes an aunt who guarded her family’s homestead in the Haitian countryside, a cousin who died of AIDS while living in Miami as an undocumented immigrant, and a Haitian woman mutilated in a machete attack who became a public witness against torture. Create Dangerously is an eloquent and moving expression of Danticat's belief that immigrant artists are obliged to bear witness when their countries of origin are suffering from violence, oppression, poverty, and tragedy.

''Danticat offers an invaluable primer to the Haitian American experience in all its inherited trauma. Arguably she does for the Haitian diaspora what Junot Díaz has done for Dominican Americans'' TLS''Danticat''s observations feel more like a guide to living - a testament to what writers can offer in difficult times'' Tinbete Ermyas, NPR Best Books of 2024Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat''s childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We''re Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin that explore several abiding themes: environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood, and the complexities of resilience.From hurricanes to political violence, from her days as a new student at a Brooklyn elementary school knowing little English to her account of a shooting hoax at a Miami mall, Danticat has an extraordinary ability to move from the personal to the global and back again. Throughout, literature and art prove to be her reliable companions and guides in both tragedies and triumphs.Danticat is an irresistible presence on the page: full of heart, outrage, humor, clear thinking, and moral questioning, while reminding us of the possibilities of community. And so "we''re alone" is both a fearsome admission and an intimate invitation-we''re alone now, we can talk. We''re Alone is a book that asks us to think through some of the world''s intractable problems while deepening our understanding of one of the most significant novelists at work today.PRAISE FOR EDWIDGE DANTICAT''In Danticat''s hands, with great tenderness, these hidden lives are moved away from the margins'' TLS''Stunning ruminations on the Haitian diaspora identity, as well as the layered complexities of seeking hope after tragedy . . . Read it, you will not be disappointed'' Bad Form