Studying Edwidge Danticat’s We’re Alone is like sitting right down to hearken to an outdated pal. Private, touching, wealthy in observations, sensible, resonant, vibrant and sophisticated, the eight essays that make up this assortment open a door into Danticat’s previous and current, her historical past and the historical past of Haiti, her relationship to worldly issues and to the work of timeless writers. With clear, concise prose that delves into harsh matters with out shedding its humorousness, Danticat as soon as once more proves that she is considered one of modern literature’s strongest, most swish voices.
We’re Alone opens with a preface through which Danticat explains that, for her, writing essays is a quest for a really particular “sort of aloneness/togetherness, in addition to one thing akin to what the Haitian American anthropologist and artist Gina Athena Ulysse has labeled rasanblaj, which she defines as “meeting, compilation, enlisting, regrouping (of individuals, spirits, issues, concepts).” That aloneness/togetherness is current in each essay. All of us expertise issues in a different way, however the best way Danticat talks about love, loss, migration, grief and injustice, to call just a few, makes them really feel patently common.
This quick assortment has no throwaways, however some standouts advantage particular person consideration.
“They Are Ready within the Hills: Touring with Lorraine Hansberry, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Gabriel García Márquez, Paule Marshall, and Toni Morrison” is, regardless of its lengthy title, a splendidly paced essay through which Danticat shares a few of her personal travels and experiences all through her profession whereas concurrently coming into right into a dialog, filled with admiration, with the authors named within the title. Danticat is an achieved author, however this essay is all about her love of literature and the best way the work of others have impacted her and typically labored as a lens by way of which she might begin processing varied experiences.
In “This Is My Physique,” we’re proper there with the writer two days earlier than Christmas of 2017 as she ditches her automobile, runs away from a shooter at a mall and hides behind a bush. The taking pictures turned out to be considered one of many hoaxes perpetrated that yr so individuals might steal from shops through the ensuing chaos, however for Danticat, recounting the expertise is an excuse to get the dialog began. From there, the piece morphs into an essay about parenting, her personal mom’s loss of life from most cancers, and the way she tried to mum or dad even from past the grave by leaving Danticat and her brothers a tape with directions for all times, together with what she needed the writer to put on at her funeral. From there, the essay strikes — easily, at all times — right into a dialogue of starvation and, amongst different issues, the ethics of force-feeding at Guantanamo and a recognition of how the “grace of the younger Parkland survivors, their eloquence, their efforts to incorporate much less privileged youth — amongst them younger individuals of shade whose communities are chronically and disproportionately affected by gun violence — has been particularly eye opening.”
“By the Time You Learn This” is one other marvel that seamlessly weaves collectively previous and current whereas exploring the loss of life of George Floyd, recounting the racism Danticat noticed whereas driving New York Metropolis Transit buses, after which touches on the huge migration of African Individuals from rural areas within the South to cities within the North of the USA.
The remainder of the essays share the identical shapeshifting nature. Nevertheless, they accomplish that whereas additionally containing not less than one of many cohesive components that make the e book really feel like an entire; historical past, household, racism, Haiti, migration, literature, and so on. Danticat masterfully strikes from one matter or thought to the following with the highly effective fluidity of a raging river. From each Haitian being suspected of getting AIDS to reminiscences of the “ruthless Duvalier dictatorship,” each essay right here accommodates not less than a slice of historical past. From a dialogue of momentary protected standing for Haitians that turns right into a dialog about rainbows to the numerous excerpts of poems and names that remember Black excellence all through the gathering — Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou — this assortment exhibits precisely the place Danticat matches, and simply how a lot her work is in dialog with that of different giants.
We’re Alone accomplishes quite a bit, however maybe an important factor it does is that it manages to really feel like an invite from the opening pages. Sure, that is Danticat speaking about racism and injustice whereas digging deep and displaying us simply how ugly humanity could be, nevertheless it’s additionally a set filled with hope and a celebration of writing. Finally, that is greater than a set of essays; that is an invite. “You are alone and I am alone,” says Danticat in a method or one other in each essay, “however if you happen to be a part of me, we could be alone collectively.” This stunning invitation is one I encourage you to simply accept.