Book Buzz: Dèy by Edwidge Danticat
“In December 2017, I was doing some last-minute Christmas shopping in a mall in Miami. I was about to leave when I heard some pops over a loudspeaker. People around me started running, screaming, crying. We thought we were in a mass shooting. It turned out to be a hoax. Before I knew it wasn’t real, I ran with the crowd and hid behind a bush, where I pondered my whole life.
I couldn’t let go of the experience, in part because it’s linked to the much larger issue of massacres and gun violence in the U.S. and Haiti. If there’s an image or sound or character that inspired Dèy, it’s the sound of gunshots, the image of those people fleeing and hiding in the mall that day, among whom emerged Magnolia Elie, the seemingly successful but very conflicted narrator of the book. ”
― Edwidge Danticat, Interview, Harper’s Bazaar
What booksellers are saying about Dèy
- Edwidge Danticat is brilliant – again. In Dèy she explores the impacts of violence on families in Miami and Haiti, the evolution and changeable meaning of home, and the grounding and healing power of family.
― Candice, Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg, FL | BUY
- Taking its title from the Haitian Kreyòl word for mourning, Dèy is a life-affirming novel about not only the fragility of existence, but also the value of love and family.
― Jude, Square Books, Oxford, Mississippi | BUY
- Brilliant, propulsive storytelling!
― Cristen, Long Story Books, Atlanta, Georgia | BUY
- A timely and evocative novel written by master American writer, Edwidge Danticat, the novel follows the life of a Haitian American woman and opens with a bang. Yes, an actual bang, as the main character is caught up in a random act of violence. This begins her questioning of everything she holds dear. What makes a family a family and a home a home? I experienced it all with her.
― Karen, Righton Books, St Simons Island, Georgia | BUY
About Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat is the author of numerous books, including The Art of Death, a National Book Critics Circle finalist; Claire of the Sea Light, a New York Times Notable Book; Brother, I’m Dying, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist; The Dew Breaker, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; and Krik? Krak!, also a National Book Award finalist. A Neustadt International Prize for Literature winner and the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, and elsewhere.
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I know a lot of fairy tales.
Like I cut my teeth on them. I grew up reading lots of fairy tale collections, and I realized I could only with difficulty think of fairytales where women were friends, where women talk to each other, and where they weren’t antagonists to each other in some way. I know they’re there, but the fact that I could reach for 10 stories of women waiting for rescue or women waiting to be chosen or women seeking husbands or, you know, that sort of thing instead of a story of women setting out together to have adventures—which is really what I wanted to tell my 7 year old niece who is asking me for a fairy tale— It was very disturbing to me, and I just remember in that moment thinking I’m just going to make something up. I’m gonna make something up because I really want her to know that there is room in fairytales for girls to be friends.
