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aliceboule's review against another edition
3.0
Fabulous work by Danticat. I don't think it is quite as great as her other work "The Dewbreaker" but it contributes to a portfolio of works that is impressive.
chloekg's review against another edition
3.0
Part memoir, part political-historical reflection of Haiti, this series of essays is disjointly coherent and scary and intimate and matter-of-fact plodding. Human depravity features prominently among little moments of family and yearning and tropical heat. It's unlike any other collection I've encountered, an unusual testament of the grandness conspiring between art and history.
danitajreese's review against another edition
5.0
Inept is the word that immediately comes to mind when trying to "review" this book. Ms. Danticat's words, halting yet fluid, have borne upon me the beginnings of an understanding of a nation and its beleaguered people. I have no mechanism with which to comprehend the physical, political, emotional and spiritual devastation so many have endured, but my mind is now open, reset and forever changed by her deft and daring creation.
So many of the questions she asked herself (and others) are questions that too many of us aren't asking ourselves (and others). And we should given the state of affairs in our own countries and those to which we are now indebted/intertwined. For instance, near the end of the Bicentennial chapter: "For is there anything more timely and timeless than a public battle to control one's destiny, a communal crusade for self-determination?"
No. There isn't.
And while I don't wish to divert any attention from Haiti's hopes and plights (of which I presently know too little), I'm invigorated by her thoughts about artists any- and everywhere creating dangerously, defiantly and fearlessly before, during and after times when our governing institutions "govern" with such blithe indifference.
Also, I love how she reveals the duality of being an immigrant artist throughout the book. As both Haitian and American I feel in so many ways that she's perfectly primed to see things about both countries that perhaps neither is capable of acknowledging. In the Another Country chapter in particular she dissects America (in the period immediately following Hurricane Katrina that is still just as relevant now) in such a way that I felt like I was the "amenning lady" waving her white hankie on the first pew in church:
"This is the America that continues to startle, the America of the needy and never-have-enoughs, the America of the undocumented, the unemployed and underemployed, the elderly, and the infirm ... Perhaps this America does have more in common with the developing world than with the one it inhabits."
Preach.
So many of the questions she asked herself (and others) are questions that too many of us aren't asking ourselves (and others). And we should given the state of affairs in our own countries and those to which we are now indebted/intertwined. For instance, near the end of the Bicentennial chapter: "For is there anything more timely and timeless than a public battle to control one's destiny, a communal crusade for self-determination?"
No. There isn't.
And while I don't wish to divert any attention from Haiti's hopes and plights (of which I presently know too little), I'm invigorated by her thoughts about artists any- and everywhere creating dangerously, defiantly and fearlessly before, during and after times when our governing institutions "govern" with such blithe indifference.
Also, I love how she reveals the duality of being an immigrant artist throughout the book. As both Haitian and American I feel in so many ways that she's perfectly primed to see things about both countries that perhaps neither is capable of acknowledging. In the Another Country chapter in particular she dissects America (in the period immediately following Hurricane Katrina that is still just as relevant now) in such a way that I felt like I was the "amenning lady" waving her white hankie on the first pew in church:
"This is the America that continues to startle, the America of the needy and never-have-enoughs, the America of the undocumented, the unemployed and underemployed, the elderly, and the infirm ... Perhaps this America does have more in common with the developing world than with the one it inhabits."
Preach.
ajleigh15's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.75
aromanticmoodboard's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
timhoiland's review against another edition
5.0
In a collection of essays called Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, the French philosopher and journalist Albert Camus writes, “Art cannot be a monologue. We are on the high seas. The artist, like everyone else, must bend to his oar, without dying if possible.”
Art and death are two things that have shaped the life and writing of the acclaimed Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat, whose book Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work borrows its title from Camus.
Though Danticat emigrated to the United States with her family as a child, and while she was not among those in Haiti at the time of the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, the gravity of it is something she carries with her every day. Just as it has done for so many others in the Haitian diaspora, the earthquake’s destruction has come to define her.
During Haiti’s earlier era of prolonged dictatorships—a state of affairs that led many Haitians like Danticat to flee—artists, authors, and other cultural “creators” were often silenced and killed. In an especially poignant passage in Create Dangerously, Danticat writes:
"Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I’ve always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them. Coming from where I come from, with the history I have—having spent the first twelve years of my life under both dictatorships of Papa Doc and his son, Jean-Claude—this is what I’ve always seen as the unifying principle among all writers… Somewhere, if not now, then maybe years in the future, a future that we may have yet to dream of, someone may risk his or her life to read us. Somewhere, if not now, then maybe years in the future, we may also save someone’s life, because they have given us a passport, making us honorary citizens of their culture."
- See more at: http://timhoiland.com/2014/06/create-dangerously
Art and death are two things that have shaped the life and writing of the acclaimed Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat, whose book Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work borrows its title from Camus.
Though Danticat emigrated to the United States with her family as a child, and while she was not among those in Haiti at the time of the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, the gravity of it is something she carries with her every day. Just as it has done for so many others in the Haitian diaspora, the earthquake’s destruction has come to define her.
During Haiti’s earlier era of prolonged dictatorships—a state of affairs that led many Haitians like Danticat to flee—artists, authors, and other cultural “creators” were often silenced and killed. In an especially poignant passage in Create Dangerously, Danticat writes:
"Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I’ve always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them. Coming from where I come from, with the history I have—having spent the first twelve years of my life under both dictatorships of Papa Doc and his son, Jean-Claude—this is what I’ve always seen as the unifying principle among all writers… Somewhere, if not now, then maybe years in the future, a future that we may have yet to dream of, someone may risk his or her life to read us. Somewhere, if not now, then maybe years in the future, we may also save someone’s life, because they have given us a passport, making us honorary citizens of their culture."
- See more at: http://timhoiland.com/2014/06/create-dangerously