Breath, Eyes, Memory

, Edwidge Danticat.“Breath, Eyes, Memory.” 1998: n. pag. Print.

At an astonishingly young age Edwidge Danticat has become one of our most celebrated new novelists, a writer who evokes the wonder, terror and heartache of her native Haiti – and the enduring strength of Haiti’s women – with a vibrant imagery and narrative grace that bears witness to her people’s suffering and courage.

At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti – to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence, in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.

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