Edwidge Danticat: Breath, Eyes, Memory

[Mirabell]

Breath, Eyes, Memory is my first Danticat book, which is interesting, really good actually, for a first novel it's astonishing. I can see that she made the Granta list.

The most incredible thing about breath, eyes, memory is the calm in its pages, the way that it quietly tells its story, following its characters over a long period of time until it lets it all come down on them. a lesser writer would have brought the drama on much, much earlier. its so assured and careful. impressive, really, really impressive.

I come from a place where breath, eyes and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like the hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to.