Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Haitian author Edwidge Danticat is an artful coming of age story told through the lens of an young girl, Sophie, as she immigrates to the United States from the Haitian countryside. Sophie has to leave her beloved Tante Atie, who has raised her since she was a baby, to go be her mother in New York whom she barely remembers. She soon finds out that the brutal sugar cane fields which her mother, Tante and grandparents worked in left more permanent scars than she realized. Danticat uses her compelling, succinct narrative to chronicle three generations of women's struggle to escape the psychological marks left on them by sexual violence and the brutality of the sugar cane fields. Sophie finds that she too is caught in the same loop as her mother when she runs off with a neighbor, endures sex to please him and becomes pregnant. Sophie's voice has all the directness and disconnect of a young woman trying to find herself among all the trauma around her. This perfunctory tone allows topics like rape and death to come to the forefront of the narrative and then fade quickly away. Breath, Eyes, Memory has a much appreciated psychological depth that Danticat imparts with such winsome writing that it is possible to savor it and be deeply moved by it without being overwhelmed by the injustices suffered by these women. Danticat has received numerous awards for her books such as the International Faialno Prize and the MacArthur Genius Grant. She also has also been active in promoting human rights in Haiti trying to combat the corruption and dire poverty that her books so poignantly portray.