Biography
Danticat moved to the U.S. from her native country, Haiti, at the age of 12. She attended Barnard College and later Brown University, leaving the educational community with a degree in French literature and an MFA. She published her first book at 25 and received acclaim almost immediately. Governmental policies of both the U.S. and Haiti are of immense importance to her, and she cites the tragedy of the political struggles of Haitian immigrants as a major influence for her work. Outside of the literary world, she is an active participant in efforts to mobilize citizens and enact change in policies relating to immigration, particularly in light of the natural and political disasters of Haiti.
Literary Contributions
Fiction
Breath, Eyes, Memory, 1994
Krik? Krak!, 1995
The Farming of Bones, 1998
Behind the Mountains, 2002
The Dew Breaker, 2004
Non-Fiction
The Butterfly's Way, 2001
After the Dance, 2002
Films
Courage and Pain, 1996
The Agronomist, 2003
Jaggi, Maya. "Profile: Edwidge Danticat." The Guardian. 19 Nov. 2004. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
"Edwidge Danticat." African American Literature Book Club. n.p. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Questions
1. In what way is the family structure degraded, and what is the politico-psychological motivation for that degradation?
2. What character archetypes are present in the story, and how do the characters diverge from these paths?
3. All of the major victims in the story are female; how would the story differ if they were male or if the antagonist was female?
ReplyDelete4. The reader does not receive explicit mention of the historical context of the story; how does this effect the way we interpret the meaning of the story?