Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.
As an 11th grader in Brooklyn, Edwidge Danticat told her history teacher that she wanted to leave her mark on the world through writing. This month, she publishes her 11th book for adults, a collection of essays entitled We’re Alone (Graywolf).
After moving to the U.S. from Haiti at 12, speaking Haitian Creole and little English, she came out with her debut Breath, Eyes, Memory when she was 25 (though she began writing when she was in high school), which landed her on Granta’s Best Young American Novelists list. Other books include Everything Inside (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Story Prize); Brother, I’m Dying (NBCC Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize); The Dew Breaker (the Story Prize), and The Farming of Bones (American Book Award). She’s also received a MacArthur Genius grant and the Langston Hughes medal, edited the anthologies Haiti Noir, Haiti Noir 2, and Best American Essays, among others, and written 19 children’s/young adult books.
The Port-au-Prince-born and -raised, New York-based author (she lived in Miami for more than 20 years), studied at Barnard and earned an M.A. in writing from Brown (with honorary degrees from Brooklyn College, Smith, Yale, and the University of the West Indies). She has taught creative writing at NYU and the University of Miami and is currently the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the African-American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia. She is working on a novel, and her picture book, Watch Out for Falling Iguanas (Akashic Books), will be out next summer.
Until her parents sent for her to join them in U.S. at age 12, Danticat was raised by an aunt and uncle; is the oldest of 4 children with 3 brothers, and all were allowed by their immigrant parents to pick pizza, fried chicken, or hot dogs on Friday nights to immerse them in American culture; was nicknamed Nounoune; was invited by Toni Morrison (who gave her 2 hairpins) to visit her at the Louvre, where she was in residency); has been on congressional delegations to detention centers and brought her 2 daughters to the border of Haiti and the DR to visit refugees; records her stories and listens to them to check on flow (a tip she learned from Walter Mosley); wrote the Haiti chapter in Girl Rising, narrated by Cate Blanchett. (Her introduction to film work came through working on documentaries with Jonthan Demme, including The Agronomist.)
Secret wish: To write music (though she doesn’t play any instruments).
First book received as a present: Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline.
First book read in English: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Fan of: Alice Walker essay “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” Let her book recs grow on you.
The book that:
…helped me through a loss:
C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed. I received multiple copies from friends after each of my parents died. Now, I often quote lines from it to grieving friends.
…kept me up way too late:
Walter Mosley’s Touched. In this novel, humanity is a virus. I had to find out how things turned out for us humans.
…made me weep uncontrollably:
Elizabeth Alexander’s The Light of the World, a gorgeous memoir about her artist husband’s sudden death and its aftermath.
…currently sits on my nightstand:
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe by Marlene L. Daut, a fascinating, in-depth, and meticulously researched biography of Haiti’s revolutionary-turned-king.
…I’d give to a new graduate:
Farah Jasmine Griffin’s Read Until You Understand, advice the author’s dying father left her in a note, advice we can all use.
…I last bought:
An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children by Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker. How can you go wrong with these two?
…has the best title:
Warsan Shire’s Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head, a stunning collection of poems by the author of one of the most quoted poems of the last decade, “Home,” in which she reminds us that “no one leaves home/unless home is the mouth of a shark.”
…has a sex scene that will make you blush:
Judy Blume’s Wifey. In high school, my friends and I used to pass around a wrinkled paperback copy with the sex scenes highlighted. I still blush, remembering how those sex scenes made us blush.
…I’ve re-read the most:
Toni Morrison’s Sula, a master class in plot, setting, description, dialogue, pacing, and, of course, Morrison’s exquisite language.
…describes a house I’d want to visit:
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. We can leave some houses, but they never leave us.
…I never returned to the library (mea culpa):
Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, a paperback edition from the 1980s. Part of me thinks the library secretly came to my house and reclaimed it when I misplaced it years later.
…makes me feel seen:
Underworlds by Patrick Sylvain, a collection of poems, powerfully written as the author puts it in “ancestral tongues.”
…features the most beautiful book jacket:
Book jackets are more and more beautiful lately, but I find Fabienne Josaphat’s Kingdom of No Tomorrow exceptionally beautiful.
…fills me with hope:
Juliana Lamy’s You Were Watching from the Sand, a story collection with such range and beauty that you need to sit with each one for a while.
…I’d want signed by the author:
My 1937 hardcover edition of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, which was recently gifted to me by a friend.
Bonus question: The literary organization/charity I support:
Haiti Projects’ Community Library builds community around reading, computer, health, and financial literacy classes in rural Haiti.
Riza Cruz is an editor and writer based in New York.