Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian-American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or edited several books and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. As of the fall of 2023, she will be the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University.
Breath, Eyes, Memory is Edwidge Danticat's acclaimed 1994 novel, and was chosen as an Oprah Book Club Selection in May 1998. The novel deals with questions of racial, linguistic and gender identity in interconnected ways.
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at Boston Review. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedom University, a volunteer organization in Georgia that provides post-secondary instruction to undocumented immigrants. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.
The Dew Breaker is a collection of linked stories by Edwidge Danticat, published in 2004. The title comes from the Haitian Creole name for a torturer during the regimes of François "Papa Doc" and Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
Haitian Americans are a group of Americans of full or partial Haitian origin or descent. The largest proportion of Haitians in the United States live in Little Haiti to the South Florida area. In addition, they have settled in major Northeast cities such as New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and in Chicago and Detroit in the Midwest. Most are immigrants or their descendants from the mid-late 20th-century migrations to the United States. Haitian Americans represent the largest group within the Haitian diaspora.
Farming of Bones is a work of historical fiction by Edwidge Danticat, published in 1998. It tells the story of an orphaned young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic who gets caught up in the carnage of the Parsley massacre during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo.
Anacaona (1474?–1504), or Golden Flower, was a Taíno cacica, or female cacique (chief), religious expert, poet and composer born in Xaragua. Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, Ayiti or Quisqueya to the Taínos was divided into five kingdoms, i.e., Xaragua, Maguana, Higüey, Maguá, and Marién. Anacaona was born into a family of caciques. She was the sister of Bohechío, the ruler of Xaragua.
Krik? Krak! (ISBN 0-679-76657-X) is a collection of short stories written by Edwidge Danticat and published in 1996. It consists of nine short stories plus an epilogue. The stories are tied together by similar plots of struggle and survival within the Haitian community. The title of the books is a reference to the Haitian cultural tradition of folk storytelling.
Zeituni Onyango was the half-aunt of United States President Barack Obama; she was born into the Luo tribe in Kenya. Born during the British rule of the Protectorate of Kenya, Onyango was the half-sister of Barack Obama Sr., father to the president. The younger Obama refers to her as "Aunti Zeituni" in his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father. In 2002 she applied for political asylum in the United States but was denied. She became notable when her case was leaked in the final days of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign in which Barack Obama was the Democratic candidate, attracting international media attention.
Haitian literature has been closely intertwined with the political life of Haiti. Haitian intellectuals turned successively or simultaneously to African traditions, France, Latin America, the UK, and the United States. At the same time, Haitian history has always been a rich source of inspiration for literature, with its heroes, its upheavals, its cruelties and its rites.
Myriam Merlet was a political activist, scholar and economist who served as Chief of Staff of Haiti's Ministry for Gender and the Rights of Women, from 2006 to 2008. One of the particular focuses of her work was on how rape and rape culture is used as a political weapon, and was not considered a criminal offense in Haiti until 2005.
Laura Chapman Hruska was an American lawyer, novelist, and co-founder and editor in chief of the Soho Press.
Elsie Augustave is a Haitian-American author. Her debut novel, The Roving Tree, follows a young Haitian adoptee, Iris Odys, through various journeys across the world. Odys is the rejected daughter of a Haitian maid and of the middle-class Haitian man who employs her. In addition to the struggle for identity of cross-cultural adoptees, the book explores themes of class, color and religion in Haiti. McArthur prize winner Edwidge Danticat described the book to The New York Times as "a gorgeous new novel about a Haitian adoptee finding her way in many different corners of the world."
Michele M. Wucker /’wʊkər/ is an American author, commentator and policy analyst specializing in the world economy and crisis anticipation. She is the author of The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore, Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong when Our Prosperity Depends on Getting it Right and Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians and the Struggle for Hispaniola.
Évelyne Trouillot is a Haitian author, writing in French and Creole.
Patricia Benoit is a Haiti-born American filmmaker. In 2012, she was critically acclaimed for her directorial venture on Stones in the Sun which was later screened at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival where she won "Best New Narrative Director".
Wayétu Moore is a Liberian-American author and social entrepreneur. Her debut novel, She Would Be King, was published by Graywolf Press in September 2018, and was named a best book of 2018 by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Entertainment Weekly & BuzzFeed. The novel was positively reviewed by Time Magazine, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Moore has published work in The New York Times, The Paris Review, Guernica Magazine, The Atlantic, and other journals. She was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship for fiction in 2019. Moore's memoir, The Dragons, The Giant, The Women, was named a 2020 New York Times Notable Book, a Time Magazine 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020, and a Publishers Weekly Top 5 Nonfiction Books of 2020. In 2011, Moore founded a publishing house and nonprofit organization, One Moore Book, which publishes and distributes books intended for children in countries underrepresented in literature.
Ibi Aanu Zoboi is a Haitian-American author of young adult fiction. She is best known for her young adult novel American Street, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young Adult's Literature in 2017.
Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin and Felipe Gómez Alonzo were Guatemalan immigrant children who died, in separate incidents, while in the custody of the United States Border Patrol in December 2018, after having entered the country, by crossing the border between Mexico and the United States.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is an Ecuadorian-American writer and the author of The Undocumented Americans (2020). She has written about her experiences as an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador to the United States. In October 2020 it was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
