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Brother, I’m Dying
EDWIDGE DANTICAT

Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat
77 reviews (2007) (624p)
National Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist
National Book Critics Circle - Autobiography Winner

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Book Description
From the best-selling author of The Dew Breaker, a major work of nonfiction: a powerfully moving family story that centers around the men closest to her heart—her father, Mira, and his older brother, Joseph.

From the age of four, Edwidge Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph, a charismatic pastor, as her "second father," when she was placed in his care after her parents left Haiti for a better life in America. Listening to his sermons, sharing coconut-flavored ices on their walks through town, roaming through the house that held together many members of a colorful extended family, Edwidge grew profoundly attached to Joseph. He was the man who "knew all the verses for love."

And so she experiences a jumble of emotions when, at twelve, she joins her parents in New York City. She is at last reunited with her two youngest brothers, and with her mother and father, whom she has struggled to remember. But she must also leave behind Joseph and the only home she's ever known.

Edwidge tells of making a new life in a new country while fearing for the safety of those still in Haiti as the political situation deteriorates. But Brother I'm Dying soon becomes a terrifying tale of good people caught up in events beyond their control. Late in 2004, his life threatened by an angry mob, forced to flee his church, the frail, eighty-one-year-old Joseph makes his way to Miami, where he thinks he will be safe. Instead, he is detained by U.S. Customs, held by the Department of Homeland Security, brutally imprisoned, and dead within days. It was a story that made headlines around the world. His brother, Mira, will soon join him in death, but not before he holds hope in his arms: Edwidge's firstborn, who will bear his name—and the family's stories, both joyous and tragic—into the next generation.

Told with tremendous feeling, this is a true-life epic on an intimate scale: a deeply affecting story of home and family—of two men's lives and deaths, and of a daughter's great love for them both.


Other Award Winning Books by Edwidge Danticat
Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat
28 reviews (2019) (240p) (NBCCA) (ALA)
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Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat
258 reviews (2013) (256p) (PW Fiction) (NYT100) (LJ Top10) (MK Top) (ALA)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
57 reviews (2004) (256p) (NBCCA) (PF)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
64 reviews (1998) (320p) (ALA)
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Krik?Krak! by Edwidge Danticat
75 reviews (1995) (240p) (NBA)
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Edwidge Danticat Award Stats
Major Prize* Nominations 9  
Unique Books Nominated for a Major Prize* 6  
Pulitzer Prize Wins 0  
Pulitzer Prize Nominations 0  
National Book Critics Circle Award Wins 1 Everything Inside ·  
National Book Critics Circle Award Nominations 2 The Dew Breaker · Everything Inside ·  
National Book Award Wins 0  
National Book Award Nominations 2 Krik?Krak! · Brother, I’m Dying ·  
Man Booker Prize Wins 0  
Man Booker Prize Nominations 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Wins 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Nominations 1 The Dew Breaker ·  

*Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award

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