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Overview
From the age of four, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph as her “second father,” when she was placed in his care after her parents left Haiti for America. And so she was both elated and saddened when, at twelve, she joined her parents and youngest brothers in New York City. As Edwidge made a life in a new country, adjusting to being far away from so many who she loved, she and her family continued to fear for the safety of those still in Haiti as the political situation deteriorated.
In 2004, they entered into a terrifying tale of good people caught up in events beyond their control. Brother I'm Dying is an astonishing true-life epic, told on an intimate scale by one of our finest writers.
Winner of the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography
Synopsis
From the age of four, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph as her “second father,” when she was placed in his care after her parents left Haiti for America. And so she was both elated and saddened when, at twelve, she joined her parents and youngest brothers in New York City. As Edwidge made a life in a new country, adjusting to being far away from so many who she loved, she and her family continued to fear for the safety of those still in Haiti as the political situation deteriorated.
In 2004, they entered into a terrifying tale of good people caught up in events beyond their control. Brother I'm Dying is an astonishing true-life epic, told on an intimate scale by one of our finest writers.
The Washington Post - Bliss Broyard
As she recounts in her powerful new memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, Danticat was 2 when her father left Haiti for the United States and 4 when her mother followed him to New York City. "Then, as now, leaving often seemed like the only answer, especially if one was sick like my uncle or poor like my father, or desperate, like both." She lived for eight years with her father's older brother, Joseph, a dynamic pastor who ran a church and school in the hilltop neighborhood of Bel Air overlooking Port-au-Prince, while waiting to join her parents. Danticat interweaves the story of her childhood spent between her two "papas" with the final months of both men's lives, which happened to coincide with her first pregnancy. In the process, Brother, I'm Dying, a nominee for this year's National Book Award, illustrates the large shadow cast by political and personal legacies over both the past and the future.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
After Edwidge Danticat's parents left Haiti for America when she was four, she was left in the care of her uncle Joseph. It was a good choice. Her father's older brother was a gentle man, a thoughtful caretaker, generous even in hard times. When little Edwidge left to be reunited with her parents in New York City eight years later, it was a bittersweet departure; her heart sank when she thought of being separated from her second father, the pastor who "knew all the verses for love." Joseph stayed on in Haiti, ministering to his congregation, but as times grew worse, he was forced to flee to America in 2004. His story ends tragically. In Florida, he was first detained by U.S. Customs, then imprisoned by the Department of Homeland Security. Within days, the frail 81-year-old refugee was dead. Danticat's soulful story brings him to life again. A moving memoir by the author of The Dew Breaker.From the Publisher
“Remarkable. . . . A fierce, haunting book about exile and loss and family love.” —The New York Times"With a storyteller's magnetic force . . . [Danticat] gives voice to an attachment too deep for words.” —O, The Oprah Magazine“Powerful. . . . Danticat employs the charms of a storyteller and the authority of a witness to evoke the political forces and personal sacrifices behind her parents' journey to this country and her uncle's decision to stay behind.” —The Washington Post Book World“Heartwrenching, intimate. . . . Through the seemingly effortless grace of Danticat's words, a family's tragedy is transformed into a promise of collective hope.” —San Francisco Chronicle“Her power of language is so great, and at the same time, so subtle, that even those that cannot see her or understand her stories will be transformed by her impact on their world.” —Walter MosleyJess Row
How does a novelist, who trades in events filtered through imagination and memory, recreate an event so recent, so intimate and so outrageous, an attack on her own loyalties and sense of deepest belonging? The story of Joseph Dantica could be, perhaps will be, told in many forms: as a popular ballad (performed, in my imagination, by Wyclef Jean); as Greek tragedy; as agitprop theater; as a bureaucratic nightmare worthy of Kafka. But Edwidge Danticat, true to her calling, has resisted any of these predictable responses. "Anger is a wasted emotion," says the narrator of The Dew Breaker, her most recent novel; in telling her family's story, she follows this dictum almost to a fault, giving us a memoir whose cleareyed prose and unflinching adherence to the facts conceal an astringent undercurrent of melancholy, a mixture of homesickness and homelessness.—The New York Times Book Review
Michiko Kakutani
In Brother, I'm Dying, Ms. Danticat brings the lyric language and emotional clarity of her remarkable 2004 novel The Dew Breaker to bear on the story of her own family, a story which, like so much of her fiction, embodies the painful legacy of Haiti's violent history, demonstrating the myriad ways in which the public and the private, the political and the personal, intersect in the lives of that country's citizens and exiles. Ms. Danticat not only creates an indelible portrait of her two fathers, her dad and her uncle, but in telling their stories, she gives the reader an intimate sense of the personal consequences of the Haitian diaspora: its impact on parents and children, brothers and sisters, those who stay and those who leave to begin a new life abroad. She has written a fierce, haunting book about exile and loss and family love, and how that love can survive distance and separation, loss and abandonment and somehow endure, undented and robust.—The New York Times
Bliss Broyard
As she recounts in her powerful new memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, Danticat was 2 when her father left Haiti for the United States and 4 when her mother followed him to New York City. "Then, as now, leaving often seemed like the only answer, especially if one was sick like my uncle or poor like my father, or desperate, like both." She lived for eight years with her father's older brother, Joseph, a dynamic pastor who ran a church and school in the hilltop neighborhood of Bel Air overlooking Port-au-Prince, while waiting to join her parents. Danticat interweaves the story of her childhood spent between her two "papas" with the final months of both men's lives, which happened to coincide with her first pregnancy. In the process, Brother, I'm Dying, a nominee for this year's National Book Award, illustrates the large shadow cast by political and personal legacies over both the past and the future.—The Washington Post
KLIATT
To quote the review of the audiobook in KLIATT, January 2008: This is a personal story of the author's childhood and her two "fathers"—her natural father and her Uncle Joseph. She lived with her uncle from the time she was four, when her parents left Haiti for America. When she finally was reunited with her birth family at 12 and met her two younger brothers in America, she was happy but disoriented. In 2004, her uncle came to Miami to escape political persecution; but instead of finding freedom, he was imprisoned by US Customs and the Department of Homeland Security and, at the age of 81, died. Shortly thereafter, his brother, Danticat's father, also died. The inhumane treatment her uncle received became the subject of many news stories, in part because of Danticat's reputation as an author. This story is beautifully written and captures the environment of Haiti and the world of Haitian culture, whether it exists in Haiti or the US, as well as the political issues. Reviewer: Nola TheissLibrary Journal
Haitian-born American writer Danticat (The Dew Breaker) is at her best-fearless, persuasive, and captivating-in recounting her family history. We meet the author as a child in her native country when she is left in the care of her pastor uncle, Joseph, after her parents and brothers immigrate to America. Fast-forward several years, and a teenage Danticat joins the family she barely remembers in New York City, leaving behind her beloved "second father" and island country. What comes next are not uncommon threads in an immigrant narrative-political uncertainties and the colorful figures imposing them, rogues empowered with guns to protect the interests of a self-serving dictator, visa aspirations, cultural woes, and the soothing power of family. In a world where the concept of the distinct nation is fast giving way to the preeminence of diasporas, this is a tale for all, both uplifting and tragic (in 2004, 81-year-old Joseph fled to Miami after escaping a pro-Aristide mob only to be detained and die in prison). Most readers will likely recognize a kindred spirit or something familiar in this family account, brought so vividly to life and captured for the ages by a fine writer. Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ5/1/07.]
—Edward K. Owusu-Ansah
School Library Journal
Haitian American Danticat (The Farming of Bones, American Book Award winner) was four when her parents immigrated to America, temporarily entrusting her and her brother to the care of her Haitian uncle and aunt. At age 12, Danticat left her loving extended family in poor and politically unstable Port-au-Prince to join her parents in America. The author recounts her family's story using her uncle's and father's triumphs and tragedies as a narrative fulcrum. Uncle Joseph, her "second father," was a minister who became mute after a radical laryngectomy, later dying horribly in an immigrant holding center as he awaited asylum in America. The story begins with Danticat learning on the same day that her father, a Brooklyn cabdriver, is dying of pulmonary fibrosis and that she is pregnant with her first child. With calm affection and respect, reader Robin Miles conveys the majesty of Danticat's family, which defies the sadness and loss that haunt their story. Highly recommended for public library biographical collections. [This book is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.-Ed.]
—Judith Robinson
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