The Bloomsbury Handbook to Edwidge Danticat - (Bloomsbury Handbooks) by Jana Evans Braziel & Nadège T Clitandre (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Edwidge Danticat's prolific body of work has established her as one of the most important voices in 21st-century literary culture. Across such novels as Breath, Eyes, Memory, Farming the Bones and short story collections such as Krik? Krak! and most recently Everything Inside, essays, and writing for children, the Haitian-American writer has throughout her oeuvre tackled important contemporary themes including racism, imperialism, anti-immigrant politics, and sexual violence.

With chapters written by leading and emerging international scholars, this is the most up-to-date and in-depth reference guide to 21st-century scholarship on Edwidge Danticat's work. The Bloomsbury Handbook to Edwidge Danticat covers such topics as:

- The full range of Danticat's writing from her novels and short stories to essays, life writing and writing for children and young adults.
- Major interdisciplinary scholarly perspectives including from establishing fields fields of literary studies, Caribbean Studies Political Science, Latin American Studies, feminist and gender studies, African Diaspora Studies, and emerging fields such as Environmental Studies.
- Danticat's literary sources and influences from Haitian authors such as Marie Chauvet, Jacques Roumain and Jacques-Stéphen Alexis to African American authors like Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Caribbean American writers Audre Lorde to Paule Marshall.
- Known and unknown Historical moments in experiences of slavery and imperialism, the consequence of internal and external migration, and the formation of diasporic communities

The book also includes a comprehensive bibliography of Danticat's work and key works of secondary criticism, and an interview with the author, as well as and essays by Danticat herself.

Review Quotes

"The Bloomsbury Handbook to Edwidge Danticat is a true first. It is a collection of luminous essays written by first-rate international writers and a welcome addition to the existing scholarship on a prolific Haitian American author known for her skill at handling numerous genres." --English Studies

"This edited collection is a comprehensive analysis of Danticat's writing from multi-themes, multi-genres, and multi-dimensions. Through exploring insightful intertexts and situating her work carefully in context, this collection emphasizes Danticat's significant contribution to Black literature and represents new directions in the study of her works." --Contemporary Women's Writing

"The book highlights various points of entry into Danticat's impressive oeuvre and would be a fantastic component of a course on the author. It should definitely be owned by every academic library." --H-Net Reviews

"Edwidge Danticat continues to be a shining light in contemporary literature, her brilliance radiating through and beyond Haitian, Caribbean, and American writing. This exciting new volume will be an essential guide for scholars, students, and general readers. Chapters range through themes as diverse as death, disaster, food, girlhood, creolization, and memory, and together are as rich and diverse as Danticat's own ever-evolving body of work." --Martin Munro, Eminent Scholar and Winthrop-King Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Florida State University, USA

"The Handbook to Edwidge Danticat is an extraordinarily rich and varied exploration of the kaleidoscopic arc of Danticat's writings. Its unrivaled comparative and interdisciplinary scope, with pivotal contributions from a broad range of her most insightful and committed readers, as well as the author herself, marks a definitive and essential contribution to our understanding of Edwidge Danticat's lyrical exploration of Haitian cultural and diasporic experience." --Professor Nick Nesbitt, Princeton University, USA

"A timely compilation of essays; a beloved talented writer! This amazing combination enriches our libraries but above all our joy in reading and teaching the work of our lovely Edwidge Danticat. Described by many as a Caribbean griot because of her love for stories and their histories, and her ability to tell and write them, the literary world of this major exponent of Caribbean and Black Women's writing in international contexts is brought into our myriad spaces of political and intellectual consciousness." --Carole Boyce-Davies, Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters and Professor of Africana Studies and English Africana Studies, Cornell University, USA

About the Author

Jana Evans Braziel is Western College Endowed Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies at Miami University, USA. She is the author of five books, including Duvalier's Ghosts: Diaspora, and US Imperialism in Haitian Literature (2010) and Diaspora: An Introduction (2008).

Nadège T. Clitandre is Associate Professor in Global Studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, USA. She is author of Edwidge Danticat: The Haitian Diasporic Imaginary (2018) and founder of Haïti Soleil, a non-profit organization that focuses on engaging youth and building community through the development of libraries in Haiti.