Danticat Wins 2009 MacArthur Fellows Award
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 2009 MacArthur Fellow Edwidge Danticat
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Edwidge Danticat, a novelist who deftly captures the essence of human endurance and renewal through rich characters inspired by experiences from her native Haiti, has received a 2009 MacArthur Fellowship. Members of the College Board know Danticat from her presentation at Forum 2004 in Chicago, for her passionate work on such projects as the Inspiration Awards, and the poignant and eloquent introduction to the College Board’s recent publication, Words Have No Borders: Student Voices on Immigration, Language and Culture, which inspired the title.
“All of the College Board, its staff and its members congratulate Danticat on this prestigious award, which is richly deserved,” said College Board President Gaston Caperton. “Her work on our Inspiration Awards has made a lasting mark on students and schools across the country, and her concern for and work on behalf of our immigrant population and their experiences are testaments to the power of the written word and the power of the individual voice.”
Danticat will receive $500,000 in support over the next five years, which she may use in any way she likes. MacArthur Fellowships are given to individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. There are three criteria for recipients: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.
As a novelist, Danticat offers vivid depictions of Haiti’s intricate and troubled history. Through her pages, people of any background can become familiar with the Haitian immigrant experience, including the 1937 massacre of Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic in The Farming of Bones, which is told from the point of view of a young domestic servant. In The Dew Breaker, Danticat weaves several stories into one around the same traumatic events. She seeks sympathy and forgiveness from her readers for characters who commit indefensible atrocities in a distant time and place, illustrating how events in Haiti continue to haunt the immigrants of the diaspora. She pays tribute to her father and uncle in her most recent book, Brother, I’m Dying, as she recounts the triumphs and tragedies they experienced in Haiti and in the United States.
Danticat’s other books include the novel Breath, Eyes, Memory; a collection of stories, Krik? Krak!; a memoir, After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti; and two novels for young adults, Behind the Mountains and Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490.
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