Keynote
A collection of exceptional new essays by one of the most significant contemporary writers on the world stage
Book Title
We're Alone
Subtitle
Essays
Cover Image
- A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2024
Body
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.
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.
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About the Author
Credit: Lynn Savarese
Praise
- “Personal, touching, rich in observations, smart, resonant, vibrant and complex. . . . Danticat once again proves that she is one of contemporary literature's strongest, most graceful voices.”—Gabino Iglesias, NPR.org
- “Danticat’s essays are collages of associations and resonances, and they are richer for it. . . . Like the informal but spirited orators she grew up idolizing, Danticat cultivates a style that is diverting and digressive. Her essays are not linear artifacts but webs that spin around ideas or turns of phrase. As such, they are never about only one thing.”—Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
- “These pieces represent [Danticat’s] outstretched hand, an invitation to spend shared time in reflection. . . . These are clearly the essays of an accomplished novelist.”—Wendy S. Walters, Los Angeles Times
- “Drawing threads among issues like political upheaval, the COVID-19 pandemic and her own childhood, this is a deeply personal and wide-ranging essay collection.”—People Magazine’s “Best Books of September 2024”
