Edwidge Danticat

At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti--to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence, in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.

Breath, Eyes, Memory

ayoni

There is always a place where women live near trees that, blowing in the wind, sound like magic. These women tell stories to their children both to frighten and delight them. These women, they are fluttering lanterns on the hills, the fireflies in the night, the faces that loom over you and recreate the same unspeakable acts that they themselves lived through. There is always a place where nightmares are passed through generations like heirlooms. Where women like cardinal birds return to look at their own faces in stagnant bodies of water.

"Because of you. I feel like a helpless cripple. I sometimes want to kill myself. All because of what you did to me, a child who could not say no, a child who could not defend herself. It would be easy to hate you, but I can't because you are a part of me. You are me."

Her ten fingers have been named for her even before she was born. Sometimes, she even wished she had six fingers on each hand so she could have two left for herself.

If she wanted to stop bleeding, she would have to give up her right to be a human being. She could choose what to be, a plant or an animal, but she could no longer be a woman.

Breath, Eyes, Memory quotes

Join the club