Edwidge Danticat to talk about exiles, the arts Feb. 11

Edwidge Danticat will give a talk, “Making Art In Cities of Exile,” Monday, Feb. 11, in Graham Center (GC) 243 at Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

The event, scheduled for 6:45 p.m., is free and open to the public.

“Miss Danticat is the ideal intellectual to share her views with students, faculty and the community on how the bitter-sweet experiences of exile shapes a writer’s oeuvre,” said Professor Asher Z. Milbauer, director of the Exile Studies Program. “Her beloved Haiti remains a towering presence in her writings. She is aware of her obligations to provide testimonies of the atrocities that often give rise to the exilic condition, but she also appreciates the blessing of exile, the chance to enjoy artistic freedom and autonomy, that is. Having Miss Danticat speak at FIU will significantly enhance our efforts to stimulate an understanding and appreciation of the many nuances of the immigrant experience.”

Her lecture will reflect on the relationship between art and exile and will examine the role displaced artists play in modern society.

Danticat is a fiction writer, memoirist, essayist, anthologist, editor, filmmaker, educator and human rights activist. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, she immigrated to Brooklyn, New York at the age of 12. She attended Barnard College and earned a bachelor’s in French literature. Danticat also earned a master’s in Creative Writing from Brown University. She has taught the art of writing at several universities, including New York University and the University of Miami. Danticat is the author of highly acclaimed novels, memoirs, and collections of essays and short stories, including “Krik! Krak!,” “The Framing of Bones,” “The Dew Beaker,” “Brother, I am Dying,” and “Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work.”

Her books have been acknowledged by many awards, including the Pushcart Short Story Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Langston Hughes Medal, and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. Danticat is also the recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program Genius Grant.

The talk is sponsored by the Exile Studies Program in the Department of English and the Center for the Humanities in an Urban Environment. It is part of their Spring 2013 lecture series “Exile, the Arts and Patronage.” It is also co-sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences, Women’s Studies Center, Latin American and Caribbean Center, African and African Diaspora Studies, Department of Modern Languages, Sigma Tau Delta, and WPBT2.

By Evelyn S. Perez