Author hopes 'genius grant' will shine on Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat hopes her "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation will bring attention to the wealth of talent struggling to be heard in her impoverished Caribbean homeland.
The 40-year-old novelist and short story writer, who has won previous prizes for her depiction of the travails of Haitian migrants, was one of 24 artists, scientists, journalists and others named Tuesday as fellows by the Chicago-based organization. Each receives a $500,000 grant over the next five years.
"My experience or whatever talent I have is not unique: there are probably thousands of others like me in Haiti or here," Danticat in a phone interview from Miami. "The only difference is I've had some opportunity."
The foundation's online biography cites her "graceful, deceptively simple prose" and "moving and insightful depictions of Haiti's complex history" that "reminds us of the power of human resistance, renewal, and endurance against great obstacles."
Danticat's 2007 memoir, "Brother, I'm Dying," told the stories of her father and uncle's struggles in Haiti and the United States,
Her early novel "Breath, Eyes, Memory" was an Oprah's Book Club pick. Other titles include the noted short story collection "Krick? Krack!" and "The Farming of Bones," a retelling of the 1937 massacre of 20,000 to 30,000 Haitian workers in the neighboring Dominican Republic.
Danticat had no idea she was even being considered for the "genius grant" until program director Daniel Socolow called her Miami home early last week. She was holding her 9-month-old daughter, Leila.
"He suggested I put the baby down and then he told me (I had won)," Danticat recalled. She laughed, "I was glad I was sitting down."
After giving out the awards, the foundation sits back and allows the recipients, who must be U.S. citizens or residents, to do whatever they want with it.
"Her work is quite extraordinary," Socolow told the AP by phone from Chicago. "We just bask in the pleasure of what she might do."
Danticat, who most recently visited Haiti in March to see family, says the prize will enable her to take time off from teaching and focus on writing, including a novel still in the works.
The author, who was the editor of a 2001 collection of writing by Haitian-Americans, said she also intends to quietly help other writers develop their talents.
Raised in Port-au-Prince's Bel Air slum, now a crumbling garbage-strewn district that has been a hotbed of gang and government violence through the years, she was taken by her parents to the United States at age 12. She attended Barnard College in New York and then earned a master's degree at Brown University.
"I'm thinking about the journey that brought us here. There are so many people who are probably more talented and more gifted than me but have not had the opportunities," she said.
Previous authors to win the MacArthur grant include Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace and Andrea Barrett. Paul Farmer, the recently named U.N. deputy special envoy for Haiti, was picked in 1993 in large part for his work as a physician in Haiti.
In an overcrowded, impoverished country where most families scrape by on less than $1 a day, many with the help of money sent back from relatives abroad, Danticat's grant money will likely attract notice.
Still, Haitian artists said the critical attention to one of their own counts for more in the long run.
"Edwidge's writing shines a light on Haiti," said Evelyne Trouillot, an author and friend who lives in Port-au-Prince. "Not only the poverty ... but the struggle to show that Haitians are human."
Source: The Associated Press
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