Description
Book SynopsisEdwidge Danticat's prolific body of work has established her as one of the most important voices in 21st-century literary culture. Across such novels as Breath, Eyes, Memory,
Farming the Bones and short story collections such as
Krik? Krak! and most recently
Everything Inside, essays, and writing for children, the Haitian-American writer has throughout her oeuvre tackled important contemporary themes including racism, imperialism, anti-immigrant politics, and sexual violence. With chapters written by leading and emerging international scholars, this is the most up-to-date and in-depth reference guide to 21st-century scholarship on Edwidge Danticat's work.
The Bloomsbury Handbook to Edwidge Danticat covers such topics as: The full range of Danticat's writing from her novels and short stories to essays, life writing and writing for children and young adults. Major interdisciplinary scholarly perspectives including from establishing fields fields of litera
Trade ReviewThe Bloomsbury Handbook to Edwidge Danticat is a true first. It is a collection of luminous essays written by first-rate international writers and a welcome addition to the existing scholarship on a prolific Haitian American author known for her skill at handling numerous genres. * English Studies *
This edited collection is a comprehensive analysis of Danticat’s writing from multi-themes, multi-genres, and multi-dimensions. Through exploring insightful intertexts and situating her work carefully in context, this collection emphasizes Danticat’s significant contribution to Black literature and represents new directions in the study of her works. * Contemporary Women's Writing *
The book highlights various points of entry into Danticat’s impressive oeuvre and would be a fantastic component of a course on the author. It should definitely be owned by every academic library. * H-Net Reviews *
Edwidge Danticat continues to be a shining light in contemporary literature, her brilliance radiating through and beyond Haitian, Caribbean, and American writing. This exciting new volume will be an essential guide for scholars, students, and general readers. Chapters range through themes as diverse as death, disaster, food, girlhood, creolization, and memory, and together are as rich and diverse as Danticat's own ever-evolving body of work. * Martin Munro, Eminent Scholar and Winthrop-King Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Florida State University, USA *
The
Handbook to Edwidge Danticat is an extraordinarily rich and varied exploration of the kaleidoscopic arc of Danticat's writings. Its unrivaled comparative and interdisciplinary scope, with pivotal contributions from a broad range of her most insightful and committed readers, as well as the author herself, marks a definitive and essential contribution to our understanding of Edwidge Danticat's lyrical exploration of Haitian cultural and diasporic experience. * Professor Nick Nesbitt, Princeton University, USA *
A timely compilation of essays; a beloved talented writer! This amazing combination enriches our libraries but above all our joy in reading and teaching the work of our lovely Edwidge Danticat. Described by many as a Caribbean griot because of her love for stories and their histories, and her ability to tell and write them, the literary world of this major exponent of Caribbean and Black Women's writing in international contexts is brought into our myriad spaces of political and intellectual consciousness. * Carole Boyce-Davies, Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters and Professor of Africana Studies and English Africana Studies, Cornell University, USA *
Table of ContentsI. LITERARY BEGINNINGS Editors’ Introduction
A Literary Life and Legacy: Danticat’s Writerly Inheritances Jana Evans Braziel, Western College Endowed Professor, Miami University, USA Nadège T. Clitandre, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
“All Geography Is Within Me”: Writing Beginnings, Life, Death, Freedom, and Salt Edwidge Danticat
Interview with Edwidge Danticat Nadège T. Clitandre, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
II. ON VIOLENCE AND VIOLATED BODIES: BIOPOLITICS IN DANTICAT’S TEXTS Reconstructive Textual Surgery in Danticat’s Krik? Krak!
and The Dew-Breaker Judith Misrahi-Barak, University Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, France “I Might Lose All My Life”: Brother, I’m Dying and (Black) Immigration Discourse in the US Myriam J. A. Chancy, Hartley Burr Alexander Chair in the Humanities, Scripps College, USA “Alleys, Capillaries, Thorns”: The Violated Terre-Natale of Ville Rose Jana Evans Braziel, Western College Endowed Professor, Miami University, USA
III. ON DEATH AND DYING: NECROPOLITICS IN DANTICAT’S TEXTS Losing Your (M)Other: Danticat’s Narratives of Un/Belonging and Un/Dying Simone A. James Alexander, Seton Hall University, USA
Lòt bò dlo: Producing Haitian Spaces of Death and Diaspora in Danticat’s The Dew Breaker Anne Brüske, Heidelberg University, Germany
Death and the Maiden: Writing Death in Danticat’s Fiction Marie-José Nzengou-Tayo (PhD), The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
IV. TIFI AK FANM, GIRLS AND WOMEN “Somebody, Anybody Sing a Black Girl’s Song…”: Danticat and Haitian Girlhood Régine Michelle Jean-Charles, Boston College, USA
The Good Daughter: Danticat’s Migrating Memories Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine
“I Am the One Telling It”: Resilient Children & Shadow Texts in Danticat’s Picture Books Cara Byrne, Case Western University, USA
V. ECRI ANGAJE: POLITICAL WRITING: DANTICAT AS PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL Haiti Faces Difficult Questions Ten Years After a Devastating Earthquake Edwidge Danticat Create Dangerously
: A Poetics of Writing as Memorial Art; The Text as Echo Chamber Anja Bandau, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
Haiti’s Past, Present, and Uncertain Future: Danticat’s New Yorker Column as Platform for Public Intellectualism Maia Butler, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, USA Megan Feifer, Medaille College
VI. FOOD, HAITI, AND HAITIAN CULINARY/LITERARY INHERITANCES Edwidge Danticat's Kitchen History Vale´rie Loichot, Emory University, USA
“A People Do Not Throw Their Geniuses Away”: Danticat’s “Kitchen Poet” Literary Antecedents Wilson C. Chen, Benedictine University, USA
Scattering and Gathering: Danticat, Food, and (the) Haitian Experience(s) Robyn Cope, Binghamton University, USA
VII. THEORETICAL APPROACHES Sea, Stone, Sky, And Cemetery: Vodou’s Divine Nature and Religious Archetypes in Danticat’s
Krik? Krak! and
After the Dance Kyrah Malika Daniels, Boston College, USA
“So Much Had Fallen into The Sea”: An Ecocritical Approach to Danticat’s Claire of the Sea Light Kristina Gibby, Utah Valley University, USA
“Aha!”: Danticat and Creolization Carine Mardorossian, State University at Buffalo, USA
Memory and The Possibilities of the Short Story Sequence in Krik? Krak! W. Todd Martin, Huntington University, USA
VIII. HAITI, THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, AND TRANSNATIONAL HISPANIOLA ‘Neither Strangers Nor Friends’: Transnational Hispaniola and the Uneven Intimacies of The Farming of Bones John D. Ribó, Florida State University, USA
“Walk too far in either direction and people speak a different language”: Navigating Hispaniola in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones
and “Nineteen Thirty-Seven” Ramon Ant. Victoriano-Martinez, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada
IX. CRITICAL SOURCES Bibliography of Writings by Edwidge Danticat Bibliography of Literary Criticism on Edwidge Danticat Biographical Notes Index
