April 16, 2013

1 Minute Review: Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat


Name of the book: Claire of the Sea Light

Author:  Edwidge Danticat 

Publisher:  Knopf 

What's the book about?  

Claire Limyè Lanmè--Claire of the Sea Light--is an enchanting child born into love and tragedy in a seaside town in Haiti. Claire's mother died in childbirth, and on each of her birthdays Claire is taken by her father, Nozias, to visit her mother's grave. Nozias wonders if he should give away his young daughter to a local shopkeeper who lost a child of her own, so he can give her a better life. 

But on the night of Claire's seventh birthday, when he makes the wrenching decision to do so, she disappears. As Nozias and others look for her, painful secrets and startling truths are unearthed among a host of men and women whose stories connect to Claire, her parents, and the town itself. 

Told with the piercing lyricism and economy of a fable, Claire of the Sea Light explores what it means to be a parent, child, neighbor, lover, and friend, while indelibly revealing the mysterious connections we share with the natural world and with one another, amid the magic and heartbreak of ordinary life. 

Why am I reading the book?  I am a fan of all things Danticat.

Quote from the book:

"Twenty miles south of the capital and crammed between a stretch of the most unpredictable waters of the Caribbean Sea and an eroded Haitian mountain range, the town had a flower-shaped perimeter that, from the mountains, looked like the unfurling petals of a massive tropical rose, so that the major road connecting the town to the sea became the stem and was called Avenue Pied ose or Stem Rose Avenue, with its many alleys and capillaries being called épine  or thorns."


Where to pre-order: http://www.amazon.com/Claire-Sea-Light-Edwidge-Danticat/dp/030727179X

EDWIDGE DANTICAT is the author of numerous books, including Brother, I'm Dying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a National Book Award finalist; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection; Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; and The Dew Breaker, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and winner of the inaugural Story Prize. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and elsewhere.


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