In the fall of 1986, Danticat entered Barnard College, where her skills as a writer were nurtured and refined. The idea for Danticat’s first novel began to emerge through a piece published in New Youth Connections which evolved into a short story and basis for Breath, Eyes, Memory.
In her last two years of high school, some of her writing was published in local newspapers. Writing was a source of solace and means of expression during her high school years, a period in which she was extremely shy and found it difficult to assimilate to the fast-paced Americanness with which she was confronted. Wishing his daughter to become self-sufficient and successful, her father encouraged her to be a nurse, but Danticat’s love for literature remained unfazed. At the age of nine, she wrote her first story in her native Creole.Īt twelve years of age, Danticat moved to New York and was enrolled in a magnet school in Brooklyn that prepared students for medical careers. The early period in her life instilled in Danticat a love and regard for Haitian culture which she has carried with her throughout her career. A MacArthur Genius Grant winner and three-time National Book Critics Circle Award nominee, Danticat has emerged over the past two decades of her career as a well-established voice amongst that of the most groundbreaking and recognized contemporary authors.īorn in 1969 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Danticat was raised by her aunt while her parents lived in New York City. Her short stories have graced the pages of the New Yorker and the Washington Post, and she has worked as a writer for two films, Poto Mitan (2009) and Girl Rising (Haiti) (2003). Danticat has published six novels to date, as well as numerous articles and the acclaimed memoir, Brother, I’m Dying (2007).