English Language and Literature Commons^™

Lyrical Rapturing In Danticat’S Work: Transcending Haitian Cultural Silence Through Narrative, Johanna M. Piard

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Edwidge Danticat’s work has been praised for the visceral, deeply personal ways she writes violence, suffering, death, and loss, leading scholars to theorize that dehumanization is a central motif in the Haitian and Haitian diasporic experience. This causes Haiti to be generally considered, as Jerry Philogene describes, “a socially dead space”. Danticat ventures into this “socially dead space” in her recent memoirs, reflecting on the traumatic experiences of her two paternal figures, her father and Uncle Joseph, her complex feelings around her mother’s death, and the value of Haitian art in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. Danticat creates a …