Edwidge Danticat, award-winning writer born in Haiti, will speak Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Murray Function Room in the Yawkey Center as part of the Lowell Humanities Series. Danticat has written several books—including Krik? Krak!, which was nominated for a National Book Award—and has been contributing to the New Yorker since 1999 when she was 30.
She will be taking part in a three-day residency at Boston College. On Wednesday, Danticat will discuss her work with associate professor of romance languages Regine Jean-Charles.
Danticat was originally meant to be a Lowell Humanities Speaker this spring, but could not attend, and English author Zadie Smith took her spot. Danticat, who completed her Master’s of Fine Arts at Brown University, has taught at New York University and the University of Miami.
In 1995, the year before Krik? Krak! was published, the New York Times wrote a profile on Danticat that described the impact of her Haitian roots on her writing and her debut novel, Breathe, Eyes, Memory. The publishing of her debut novel means that she is seen as representing all Haitian-Americans, Garry Pierre-Pierre wrote in the Times, though she has accepted this responsibility with hesitation.
“I think I have been assigned that role, but I don’t really see myself as the voice for the Haitian-American experience,” she said to Pierre-Pierre. “There are many. I’m just one.”
Featured Image Courtesy of The Atlantic
