Edwidge Danticat: Letter

“If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.”

Edwidge Danticat book Breath, Eyes, Memory

Source: Breath, Eyes, Memory

“It's not easy to start over in a new place,' he said. 'Exile is not for everyone. Someone has to stay behind, to receive the letters and greet family members when they come back.”

Edwidge Danticat book Brother, I'm Dying

Source: Brother, I'm Dying

“Along with plot, I am always thinking about structure. Sometimes the story guides you to the best structure for its telling. Using letters seemed like the best way to tell this story. When writing these letters, the characters are selecting what they want to tell. In this case, the woman is writing in a way that would not endanger her or her family if her letters were found by the military authorities who took over the country, and the man is writing with the urgency of someone who could die at any minute while at sea.”

Edwidge Danticat

On using an epistolary form for her short story “Children of the Sea” in “An Interview | Edwidge Danticat” http://www.bkreview.org/fall-2018/an-interview-with-edwidge-danticat/ in The Brooklyn Review (Fall 2018) <br class="br">Interviews