I come from a place where breath, eyes and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like the hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to. My Mother was as brave as the stars at dawn. She too was from this place. My mother was like that woman who could never bleed and then could never stop bleeding, the one who gave in to her pain, to live as a butterfly. Yes, my mother was like me. (Breath, Eyes, Memory. 1994)

Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti in 1969.  She was separated from both of her parents because of their immigration to the United States. She lived with relatives in Haiti until she was 12, when she was reunited with her parents. She earned a degree in French from Barnard and an M.F.A. at Brown University. Her thesis work became her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, a tale of the struggles of four generations of women to overcome poverty and other family curses. After she completed her master’s work, Edwidge Danticat worked for Jonathan Demme’s New York city production office. She served as an associate producer on Courage and Pain, a documentary about Haitian survivors of torture.  In 1995, a collection of short stories, Krik? Krak?, was published and nominated for a National Book Award. Edwidge Danticat is often compared to Alice Walker because of her fearlessness where controversial topics are concerned. (Norton Anthology/Answers.com)