Krik? Krak!

Arrived as described.

Beautifully-written interconnected short stories. Edwidge Danticat at her finest. I read this on my train journey to and from work in a week, but could easily have read it at home with a cup of tea in an hour.

This book helps you in understand all the pain Haitian has gone through over time. All the stories are nicely written n keep the reader engaging.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I highly recommend it to all the avid readers.

それぞれ独立した短編ではあるが、どこかで繋がりがある。ハイチの歴史を考え合わせながら読むと、何か胸がしめつけられるような気もする。血塗られた恐ろしい現実と、死者とも会話するアフリカの不思議な伝承文化がミックスされ、時にはファンタジーのようでもあり、時には逃れようのない真実であったりする。家族の絆、祖先との繋がりを大事にする彼らの温かく心優しい一面と、それらを断ち切る無残な社会とのコントラストが哀しい。 すべての物語に、ドキっとさせられる部分があって、一気に読んでしまった。カリブの暑く湿った空気を感じながら、ダンティカの不思議な世界に引き込まれ、読み終わるまで本を閉じられなかった。

What a collection of stories. A kaleidoscope of moments from the female Haitian diaspora, wide ranging in the experiences, backgrounds and identities it represents. Most stand out atm: a wall of fire rising... hot air balloons & the lines between *hope*, which is a just-delicate enough bit of faith, a spark, a kindle of light, to keep us going, and *despair*, the complete and utter loss of that hope, that spark, that match, which ironically engulfs us and overwhelms us and drowns us in blazes and ash if we were to give in. And yet, there's freedom in that absence. Also, krik? krak! Derived from call and response, an essential aspect of african storytelling and oral traditions that survived to this day, despite the centuries and journies of slavery, colonization, sufferation and attempted annihilation of the black voice. The title, like the stories, for me, represents a triumphant testament to the endurance and perseverance of these voices.

Krik? Krak! is the second full-length volume from award-winning Haitian-American author, Edwidge Danticat. Born in Haiti in 1969, Danticat immigrated to Brooklyn, New York from Haiti to join her parents, when she was twelve years old. Having never been taught to write in her native Haitian Creole and not fluent enough in French to write in that language, Danticat writes in English. Published at fourteen, she earned a degree in French Literature from Barnard College and completed an MFA at Brown University. Danticat’s writing juxtaposes the beauty and flavor of Haiti with the poverty and brutality suffered by those living under the Duvalier regime, and shows how both the rich culture and crippling fear follow those who manage to immigrate to the United States. Like her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, the stories in Krik? Krak! center around the experiences of Haitian women, both in New York and still in Haiti. However, while Breath, Eyes, Memory follows Sophie from her childhood in Haiti where she lived with her Tante Atie to the death of her mother, years later, in New York and her burial back in Haiti, Krik? Krak! relates the stories of a variety of Haitian, and Haitian American women. The first story in Krik? Krak!, “Children of the Sea,” alternates between the journals of two lovers separated by the political upheaval which characterizes life in Haiti. The unnamed teens, one in a leaky boat full of refugees fleeing a Macoute death sentence, the other, still in Port-au-Prince unwittingly protected by her father’s bribes, both realize, but deny, their personal peril. One of the so-called Radio Six rebels, the refugee keeps a journal relating the group’s desperate flight across the Sea in the forlorn hope of reaching America. As he records the death of the infant born and buried at sea along with its distraught mother, his young lover still in Haiti records the reprisals perpetrated upon those left behind. Her description of of Madan Rogers walking all over Port-au-Prince carrying her dead son’s head—the only part of him returned to her after his death at the hands of the army—is as poignant as her final realization of the sacrifices made by her parents to secure her safety after her involvement with the dissidents. In “Epilogue: Women Like Us,” Danticat connects all the “nine hundred and ninety-nine women . . . boiling in your blood” and reiterates the danger to women inherent in writing because in “our world, writers are tortured and killed if they are men. Called lying whores, then raped and killed if they are women.” Writing, to the women of Haiti who worked so hard to make a better life for their daughters, is a useless, as well as dangerous, occupation. Each of the stories between explores another facet of the lives, hopes, dreams, and realities of women in and from Haiti. Edwidge Danticat, herself one of those women, arrived in the United States right on time to join a vibrant community of black female authors determined to speak to and for those women of color whose voices had seldom previously been heard.

I got introduced to Edwidge Danticat in my English Literature class. The book is divided into nine stories (and an epilogue) and each, somehow connect to one another. As I was reading this book, a well-written book, I got introduced to different feelings and emotions. The author takes her time in Krik? Krak! introducing each character and describing each situation. If you love reading, you love being introduced to new plot stories, and want to feel what pain, suffering, and loss felt like - I highly suggest you read this book! It's an awesome read, you won't regret it!