Edwidge Danticat was born in 1969 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and emigrated to the USA at the age of twelve. She studied French literature at Barnard College in New York City and creative writing at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Her debut novel »Breath, Eyes, Memory« (1994) describes the relationships between Haitian women of several generations. This was followed by her collection of short stories »Krik? Krak!« (1995). Her second novel, »The Farming of Bones« (1998) is set against the background of the 1937 massacre of Haitian emigrants by the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Danticat continued her exploration of Haitian history in the book »The Dew Breaker« (2004). The nine loosely connected stories focus on a man who emigrated from Haiti to the USA. Although he claims to have fled from the regime of the Haitian dictator François Duvalier, he was actually one of his henchmen. »Claire of the Sea Light« (2013) was shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Based on the disappearance of a young girl, the novel tells the stories of friends and neighbors as they search for her in the Haitian coastal town of Ville Rose.
Danticat has published the children’s and young adult books »Behind the Mountains« (2002), »Anacaona, Golden Flower« (2005), »Eight Days« (2010), »The Last Mapou« (2013), »Mama’s Nightingale« (2015), »Untwine« (2015), the autobiographical travelogue »After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel« (2002), and the National Book Critics Circle Award winning memoir »Brother, I’m Dying« (2007). Danticat’s essay »The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story« (2017) was also nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her children’s book »My Mommy Medicine« (2019) received a recommendation from the Parent’s Choice Foundation. Her recently published collection of short stories »Everything Inside« (2019) was awarded the Story Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was nominated for the longlist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Danticat is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow and winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature 2018. The author lives in Miami.