EDWIDGE DANTICAT

“I tend to define myself in terms of the women I knew growing up and the stories they told me”

Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti in 1969, and was raised by her aunt under the dictatorial Duvalier regime (her parents left for the US when she was four). Danticat was reunited with her parents and brothers in America when she was 12. She published her first writings two years later, and holds a degree in literature from Barnard College and an MFA from Brown University.

Danticat’s latest book, The Dew Breaker (March 04, Knopf) immediately entered the New York Times and national bestseller lists. Movie rights are under option to HBO.

Publications include:

• Breath, Eyes, Memory (Soho Press/Vintage)

• KRIK? KRAK! (Soho Press/Vintage)

• The Farming of Bones (Soho Press/Penguin)

• anthologies edited: The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Diaspora in the United States (Soho Press) and The Beacon Best of 2000: Creative Writing by Women and Men of All Colors (Beacon).

• After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel (Crown "Journey" series)

• Behind the Mountains: The Diary of Celiane Espérance (Scholastic)

• Anacaona (Scholastic)

• The Dew Breaker (Scholastic)

Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and many anthologies and she is the co-author, with filmmaker Jonathan Demme, of two books on Haitian art: ISLANDS ON FIRE and ODILLON PIERRE: Haitian Artist (Kaliko Press). She was associate producer, with Jonathan Demme, on a documentary about Haiti called THE AGRONOMIST.