A Haitian Tragedy: Brothers Yearn in Vain
Michiko Kakutani reviews new books by Edwidge Danticat and Junot Diaz
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI, The New York Times, Books of the Times
Published: September 4, 2007
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI, The New York Times, Books of the Times
Published: September 4, 2007
When Edwidge Danticat was 2 years old, she recalls in this deeply affecting memoir, her father, Mira, left her and her brother in Haiti to move to New York City. Two years later, when her mother followed him to America, she left Edwidge with 10 new dresses she’d sewn, most of them too big for the little girl and meant to be saved to be worn in the years to come. During the following eight years Edwidge and her brother Bob lived with her father’s brother, Joseph, and his wife, Denise, in their pink house in Bel Air, a Port-au-Prince neighborhood caught in the crossfire between rival political factions and gangs. See