About this title: From the bestselling author of "The Dew Breaker" comes a major work of nonfiction: a powerfully moving family story that centers around the men closest to the author's heart--her father, Mira, and his older brother, Joseph.
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Description: Knopf, 2007. 272 pages. 1st printing / edition. Hardcover. Fine-in Fine dustjacket. Tiny damp drop top of the text block. Small neat gift inscription on the dedication page. Jacket front has light surface soil. ISBN: 1400041155 2007 National Book Award in Nonfiction nominee. Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award, Nonfiction, 2008. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2007-09-04
ISBN-13:9781400041152ISBN:1400041155
Description: Near Fine in Fine jacket. Stated 1st edition. Book is in excellent condition with no writing or marks. Cover corners sharp, a hint of wear at bottom of spine-very minor. Jacket is in perfect condition with no noted flaws. Extremely nice copy. Items selling for $7 or more ship bubble wrapped and boxed; under $7 in a bubble mailer. All items ship with complimentary delivery confirmation. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 2008-09-09
ISBN-13:9781400034307ISBN:1400034302
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781400034307. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781400034307ISBN:1400034302
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781400034307ISBN:1400034302
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 272 p. Vintage Contemporaries (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. read more
"This book was an eye-opener for me and should be required reading by anyone who doesn't realize what went on in Haiti circa 2004 just recent years ago. An engrossing read that's something of a page-turner. Her father emigrated to Brooklyn and her Uncle stayed behind and was caught up in the turmoil and bloodshed. You have to question why the U.S. made detainees wear blue suits like prison uniforms, and why her Uncle wasn't given the life-saving medication that he took back home in Haiti. This is a human atrocity. From reading the book, I wonder if the U.S. intervention in Haiti did more harm than good. I would love to talk to someone who lived there to get their take on what happened. Brother, I'm Dying won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. Read, Read."
"It's not often that I don't finish a book. But I put this one down one day and never got back to it. I wanted to like it. I've read some of Edwidge Danticat's fiction and loved her lyrical language and her sense of place. But her family history, Brother, I'm Dying, just didn't keep my interest, and certainly did not show the same beautiful language of her other books. But maybe you should decide for yourself. It was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography.
Danticat was born in Haiti, right around Duvalier's time. The country is a mess politically, with people disappearing and being murdered, rank with poverty. Danticat's dad emigrates to New York when she is 2, followed by her mother, when she is 4. She and her younger brother are left in the care of her Uncle Joseph, a pastor. It ends up being 8 years before she joins her parents. In the meantime, Joseph, a sweet and caring man, loses his voice to throat cancer, and cannot preach to his flock, something he lived for. Danticat becomes his interpreter, helping him on his trips to shops and doctors. But it also makes the separation from her parents much more difficult, since her father would call Joseph and would share much more information with him than with his very young daughter.
Eventually her parents bring her to New York, where she does not feel part of the family she belongs to. She has 2 more brothers, who immediately take to their older siblings. But the long separation has taken an emotional toll.
The story is told in 2 time periods, the past and the near present, when Danticat finds out she is pregnant at about the same time that she finds out her dad is dying from a lung ailment. Her dad is very accepting of his situation and works at preparing his family for the inevitability of his death.
And this is where I stopped. Maybe my expectations were too high for this book. But the emotional distance she felt throughout her life, seemed very apparent in her writing. It seemed as if she was writing a news story in very simple language with very little subjectivity or emotional connection involved. I don't get it, either, because all the reviews I read rave about it. Maybe if I had hung on, through the total implosion of Haiti and Joseph's doomed final trip to the United States, it would have resonated more for me. But maybe I also stopped just in time. Reading once again about a country who treats people like chattel (and I'm not mentioning which country here) is just too painful."
"Danticat writing is beautiful, strong and rich with life experience. Her piece in the New Yorker (which is included in this literary non-fiction book/memoir) made me sob and barely breathe. She keeps the story of her life, of her birth home Haiti in full view for us the readers. Haiti doesn't get a lot of press and the press that it does get. Think about it. One of the poorest, most dangerous places on Earth that is all the mainstream press wants to say. Danticat not only tells the story of Haiti but also of Haitians coming to America and Haitian-Americans. Americans whose parents are from Haiti. All this is powerful stuff a la art and humanity and also M.G.'s outlier thesis."
"A powerful story told with restraint, but while it was interesting from a cultural/political point of view, I wasn't as wowed by the writing as I expected from all the accolades."
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