Were Alone, Edwidge Danticat
Were Alone, Edwidge Danticat
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We're Alone
Essays

Author: Edwidge Danticat

Narrator: Edwidge Danticat

Unabridged: 4 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 09/03/2024


Synopsis

Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat’s childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We’re Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin that explore several abiding themes: environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood, and the complexities of resilience.

From hurricanes to political violence, from her days as a new student at a Brooklyn elementary school knowing little English to her account of a shooting hoax at a Miami mall, Danticat has an extraordinary ability to move from the personal to the global and back again. Throughout, literature and art prove to be her reliable companions and guides through both tragedies and triumphs.

Danticat is an irresistible presence on the page: full of heart, outrage, humor, clear thinking, and moral questioning, while reminding us of the possibilities of community. We’re Alone is a book that asks us to think through some of the world’s intractable problems while deepening our understanding of one of the most significant novelists at work today.

About Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat was nominated for the National Book Award in 1995 for her story collection, Krik? Krak! Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published to acclaim when she was twenty-five.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Roxane on November 20, 2024

An intelligent and meditative collection of essays.......more

Goodreads review by Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) on September 15, 2024

4.5 stars rounded up This collection of essays is largely about Haiti and the Haitian diaspora in ways that are both personal and political. We get bits that are more like memoir where Danticat shares about her childhood, about being a mother, adjusting to life in the United States, and about the COV......more

Goodreads review by Sue on September 07, 2024

In We’re Alone: Essays, Edwidge Danticat has written a series of pieces on family, Haiti and the Haitian diaspora, her writing life and the literary world she is a part of, the effects of natural and political disasters on Haiti and much of the Caribbean region, and the constancy of migration throug......more

Goodreads review by Todd on June 14, 2024

This collection of essays feels like a walk down a quiet beach, and then suddenly finding yourself in the midst of violent lawlessness coupled with natural disasters. Expertly written and arranged, Danticat came to the US from Haiti at a young age without knowing any English. She is now both an accom......more

Goodreads review by Emma on March 14, 2025

This collection of essays was so well written and I learnt so much about Haitian history. In particular about the impacts of political and natural disasters which have devastated the country for decades.......more