Edwidge Danticat's books are of the sort that make you fail miserably when trying to explain what makes them outstanding. The kind that ties your tongue. That makes you restart your sentence three times before finally giving up and saying, "You just have to read her work." Even so, I'll do my best.
When I picked up Krik? Krak! I was expecting a book of unrelated, short stories. But Danticat truly demonstrated her storytelling abilities in this one. In every story, she would infuse a golden, literary nugget that was breathtaking, but not distracting. I would read it, admire it and move on to the end of the short story in which it was written. As I moved into other parts of the book, and at a time I least expected, I'd find that golden nugget nestled in another story, tying everything together. And I discovered this wasn't just a book of short stories, this was a history of generations of Haitian women. And let me take this moment to say, I was unable to finish any of their stories without closing the book and thinking about how powerful it was.
I'm going to cut this post short because I don't want to give too much away. So, I'll end by saying, you just have to read her work.
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