An amazing story about the lives of a Haitian family living and Haiti and New York. Reading this book I now really understood the hardships people go through living on or trying to leave the island. Its a great read to purchase click here and read and excerpt below.
"Beating the Darkness
On Sunday, October 24, 2004, nearly two months after he left New York, Uncle Joseph woke up to the clatter of gunfire. There were blasts from pistols, handguns, automatic weapons, whose thundering rounds sounded like rockets. It was the third of such military operations in Bel Air in as many weeks, but never had the firing sounded so close or so loud. Looking over at the windup alarm clock on his bedside table, he was startled by the time, for it seemed somewhat lighter outside than it should have been at four thirty on a Sunday morning.
During the odd minutes it took to reposition and reload weapons, you could hear rocks and bottles crashing on nearby roofs. Taking advantage of the brief reprieve, he slipped out of bed and tiptoed over to a peephole under the staircase outside his bedroom. Parked in front of the church gates was an armored personnel carrier, a tank with mounted submachine guns on top. The tank had the familiar circular blue and white insignia of the United Nations peacekeepers and the letters UN painted on its side. Looking over the trashstrewn alleys that framed the building, he thought for the first time since he'd lost Tante Denise that he was glad she was dead. She would have never survived the gun blasts that had rattled him out of his sleep. Like Marie Micheline, she too might have been frightened to death." source
Thanks to Francesca Guerrier , Check out her websites
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4 comments:
Edwidge is amazing. I interviewed her when she first started writing and I realized then that her skill at translating the sensations and emotions she feels for Haiti is stunning.
I'm so glad you liked it..Edwidge is the author of :
* Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994)
* Krik? Krak! (1996)
* The Farming of Bones (1998)
* Behind the Mountains (2002, part of the First Person Fiction series)
* The Dew Breaker (2004)
* Anacaona: Golden Flowers Haiti, 1490 (2005, part of The Royal Diaries series)
* Brother, I'm Dying (2007)
* The Butterfly's Way (anthology editor)
Danticat wrote the foreword to Tram Nguyen's book, We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities after 9/11.
Two of the quote i used often is Edwidge's :
I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when It's at its extreme. And that's what they end up knowing about it.
People think that there is a country there that these people are only around when they are on CNN. I don't think that's limited to Haiti.
Read this interview
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/5/in_new_memoir_award_winning_haitian
Thank-You very Much Tiffany!
Np Francesca.
I have to get copies of her other books. She's a great author.
I'm going to get this book. I know that most of the ppl living in Brooklyn migrated from the Islands. So it would be nice to get more insight since I'll be moving there soon.
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