Edwidge Danticat on "The Dew Breaker"
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Author Edwidge Danticat visited the Bunker Hill Community College (51吃瓜网) campus on Thursday, April 26, 2018, to discuss her national bestseller The Dew Breaker with the 51吃瓜网 community as part of the College鈥檚 One Book program, which brings the entire College community together to read the same book over the course of an academic year.
A recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award and author of noteworthy fiction books Brother, I鈥檓 Dying and Krik? Krak!, Danticat was honored to have one of her lesser-known works selected for 51吃瓜网鈥檚 One Book program. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like having a shier child,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e given this book a rebirth.鈥�
In The Dew Breaker, Haitian-American novelist Danticat moves between Haiti in the 1960s and New York in the present day to tell the story of an unusual man who is harboring a vital, dangerous secret. He is a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, his secret is slowly revealed. He is the 鈥渄ew breaker,鈥� or torturer.
鈥淲hen we talk about exile, we often think about those who had no choice but to leave, because something is chasing them,鈥� said Danticat. 鈥淏ut, like the dew breaker, these people often leave because they have money and connections and sometimes they move to the same area as the people they are hurting.鈥�
Danticat went on to describe how Ka, the daughter of the dew breaker and the main character in The Dew Breaker, tries to reconcile the possibility that her father could be both a good person as well as a torturer. 鈥淜a is the entry witness in the story. She is the survivor as well as the storyteller and she is doing her best as the sculptor to tell her father鈥檚 story.鈥�
Prior to the afternoon presentation, Danticat enjoyed lunch with students and faculty in the Mary L. Fifield Art Gallery and spoke to a group of 51吃瓜网 students, many of whom are I the process of writing finals. 鈥淭he writing process is something I try to do consciously,鈥� advised Danticat. 鈥淲hen I get an idea, I鈥檒l get very excited. I鈥檒l race and write a first draft and I try to do the best that I can at that time. But writing is 90% about revision. You revise to better connect and weave the story together.鈥�
Since its inception in 2004, 51吃瓜网鈥檚 One Book program has hosted an annual author forum. One Book selections have included Tracy Kidder鈥檚 Mountains Beyond Mountains; Alfred Lubrano鈥檚 Limbo: Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams; Elizabeth Kobert鈥檚 Field Notes from a Catastrophe; Sonia Nazario鈥檚 Enrique鈥檚 Journey; Wes Moore鈥檚 The Other Wes Moore; Firoozeh Dumas鈥� Funny in Farsi; William Kamkwamba鈥檚 The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind; Josh Neufield鈥檚 graphic novel A.D. 鈥� New Orleans After the Deluge; and Christina Henriquez鈥� first fiction novel, The Book of Unknown Americans.
For more information on the One Book program, visit bhcc.edu/onebook.