Repeating Islands

It has just been announced that Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat is one of this year’s 24 recipients of the John D. And Catherine T McArthur Foundation “Genius Awards,” having been selected from among a pool of hundreds of writers, artists, musicians, scientists and scholars nominated for their creative genius and potential. The award carries a $500,000 prize. Other winners this year include Jill Seaman of Sudan, an infectious-disease specialist, Lynsey Addario of Turkey, a photojournalist, and Peter Huybers of Massachusetts, a climate scientist at Harvard. Past notable winners including Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard anthropologist and infectious-disease specialist who won the award in 1993 for his work combating HIV/AIDS in Haiti.

Daniel Socolow, who directs the fellows program and called Danticat with the news, said in an interview with the Miami Herald, that the final selection was made by an anonymous 12-member committee and after writing “thousands and thousands of other people about them. `We look at the work they’ve done, but at the end of the day it’s a calculation this is somebody worthy of our investment. We don’t know what they will do next; we just know they are likely to do something spectacular. It is betting on their future.” Socolow said Danticat, a compelling novelist known for capturing human endurance and perseverance through her books, “has wonderful promise yet ahead to do even more powerfully what she does.” Danticat’s most recent book, Brother, I’m Dying, won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.

The Miami Herald also interviewed Danticat on her reaction to the news. Here is what she had to say:

Miami writer Edwidge Danticat was holding her 9-month-old daughter, Leila, while trying to read the computer screen when the phone rang.

“Are you sitting down?” the caller asked.

“Yes. I am holding my baby,” she said.

“Put the baby down.”

. . .

“I am extremely grateful,” said an ecstatic Danticat. “I am still wrapping my brain around it, trying to see how I can do it justice.” As a writer, Danticat says she always yearns for the time and peace of mind as she brings her characters — ordinary people facing hardship and struggle — to life. This award gives her that, she said.

“What this does is it liberates you to really concentrate on your work,” she said. “I have always tried to pace myself not to live extravagantly, so I can earn the time I need to write.”

After receiving the news, Danticat said she gasped, then called her husband Faidherbe “Fedo” Boyer and told him the news. He and daughter Mira were the only ones who knew for a week.

Her mother, who lives in New York, only learned the news Monday.

Meanwhile, she says she has no idea who nominated her, but is extremely grateful.

“You just get this call one day,” she said. “It is so gratifying to know people out there think I deserve more time to work.”

For the Miami Herald article go to : http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1245126.html

Photo of Danticat from http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200403/20040318.html