{"id":381158,"date":"2026-08-26T00:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/381158\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T00:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:14:10","slug":"edwidge-danticats-dey-connects-haiti-miami-and-a-close-call-at-a-local-mall-arts-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/381158\/","title":{"rendered":"Edwidge Danticat\u2019s \u2018D\u00e8y\u2019 connects Haiti, Miami and a close call at a local mall | Arts Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published<\/a> by Artburst Miami, South Florida’s nonprofit source for arts journalism.<\/p>\n

While doing some last-minute Christmas shopping for her daughter in 2017, novelist Edwidge Danticat had an experience that would become a spark for her latest novel, \u201cD\u00e8y,\u201d her first in nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

It was Dec. 23, 2017, and Danticat was inside Aventura Mall when she heard a series of loud pops<\/a> that sounded like gunshots.<\/p>\n

\"Edwidge<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Edwidge Danticat returns to Miami with \u201cD\u00e8y,\u201d her first novel in more than a decade, a book she has described as both a love letter and a goodbye to the city she called home for more than 20 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Lynn Savarese)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hear about mass shootings all the time in this country, and I immediately thought, \u2018I am in one right now,’\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be a false alarm. But as she later wrote in a letter to readers, while her body may have recovered from its fight-or-flight response, it did not forget.<\/p>\n

She first wrote about the experience in \u201cThis is My Body,\u201d an essay in her 2024 collection, \u201cWe\u2019re Alone.\u201d\u00a0 There the character of Magnolia Elie, a Haitian American real estate agent and mother, began to emerge.<\/p>\n

\u201cMagnolia\u2019s character grew out of that moment in the mall when I thought my life might end dramatically and violently,\u201d Danticat wrote on her website<\/a> in a letter to readers.<\/p>\n

\u201cD\u00e8y,\u201d which was released on Tuesday, Aug. 25 by Penguin Random House<\/a>, takes its title from the Haitian Krey\u00f2l word for grief and mourning. Magnolia survives a mass shooting. But rather than talking about how it affected her, she tells no one and tries to go back into the life she was already questioning \u2014 selling real estate in rapidly changing Miami neighborhoods, raising a daughter nearing adolescence, living apart from her partner and worrying about her parents still in Haiti.<\/p>\n

\"Dèy,\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Edwidge Danticat\u2019s new novel, \u201cD\u00e8y,\u201d was partly inspired by a frightening 2017 false alarm at Aventura Mall, where she thought she was caught in a mass shooting. Danticat will discuss the book with Miami Herald Haiti\/Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles on Saturday, Aug. 29 at Books & Books, Coral Gables.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Courtesy of Penguin Random House)<\/p>\n

Loss and mortality have long been themes in the author\u2019s books, along with family, migration, memory and belonging. In \u201cD\u00e8y,\u201d it is also about people trying to remain connected across distance and to feel rooted in the different places they call home.<\/p>\n

She confided that those questions are especially personal in a novel she was writing as she prepared to leave Miami for New York after living in South Florida for more than two decades.<\/p>\n

Danticat moved to New York to teach at Columbia University, where she is on the faculty in African American and African Diaspora Studies.<\/p>\n

\"Miami<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Edwidge Danticat lived in Miami for more than two decades before moving to New York to teach at Columbia University. Her new novel, \u201cD\u00e8y,\u201d is deeply rooted in Miami.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Courtesy of Lynn Savarese)<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a way it was kind of like this book is also about saying goodbye to Miami,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Danticat will be in conversation with Miami Herald Haiti\/Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles to discuss \u201cD\u00e8y\u201d on Saturday, Aug. 29 at Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ.<\/p>\n

The two will have much to talk about, said Charles, including that both were at Aventura Mall during the 2017 scare that helped set the novel in motion. Danticat said she started texting Charles that day \u201cbecause it was news\u201d when she got a return text: \u201cI\u2019m in the mall, I\u2019m hiding in a closet in a store.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Create<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0Edwidge Danticat\u2019s book \u201cCreate Dangerously\u201d became a work of theater at Miami New Drama in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Courtesy of FURIOSA Productions)<\/p>\n

Charles said that in the years since the incident, she and Danticat have revisited that day many times in their conversations. \u201cEven more so we\u2019ve shared many discussions about Haiti, the ongoing violence, the aftershocks and the voice notes she has received from relatives that include the sounds of gunshots in the background,\u201d Charles said.<\/p>\n

For her, the novel\u2019s depiction of Haitian life in Miami is immediately recognizable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re Haitian and from Miami you recognize yourself in this book,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Charles pointed to details including the neighborhoods, the strict Haitian household, the \u201caunts\u201d who aren\u2019t actually blood relatives and even the different ways Haitians refer to Haiti \u2014 as \u201cdown there\u201d or \u201cback there\u201d \u2014 depending on their relationship to the country.<\/p>\n

The novelist said those details are part of a larger set of themes she has returned to again and again in her work. She grew up in Haiti during \u201ca time of dictatorship where you would hear about neighbors disappearing, so this precariousness of life was always part of my psyche.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Magnolia\u2019s story is more rooted in the present as people in Haiti, including members of Danticat\u2019s own family, contend with displacement and armed violence.<\/p>\n

Her more than two decades in Miami and Little Haiti also brought other concerns into the novel: environmental vulnerability, gentrification, migration and the uncertainty immigration status can create for families.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople coming and new arrivals and a feeling with issues like TPS have the constant question in mind \u2018What is home? What is belonging?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Charles said that tension between places is one of the parts of \u201cD\u00e8y\u201d she finds most familiar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the story of many of us in the diaspora who must remain connected, either because our family still lives there or we grieve for the country of our childhood,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Haiti she describes is spot on. She avoids overwhelming you with gang violence and instability while conveying how Magnolia straddles and attempts to navigate two worlds simultaneously. Instead, she weaves them into her everyday reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

For their conversation at Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, Charles said there will be questions that come out of their shared personal experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who has had many heart-to-heart conversations with her \u2014 sometimes in the middle of the night while we were both writing \u2014 about Haiti and its ripple effects, I want to ask her about how she processes grief and the invisible scars that few see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making Magnolia a real estate agent allowed Danticat to explore the question of home in a literal way.<\/p>\n

Magnolia helps other people buy and sell homes while wrestling with her own ideas about where she belongs. She is also aware that in a rapidly changing Miami, real estate can mean opportunity for some while displacement for others, Danticat explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to pick that profession because it gives you an opportunity to explore what home can mean,\u201d she said, \u201cboth in terms of physical spaces\u201d and in terms of memory and the places where families gather and create their lives.<\/p>\n

Within hours of surviving the shooting, Magnolia is back at work showing a Brickell condominium, trying to return to the ordinary routine of her life.<\/p>\n

Charles cites a sentence in the novel about one of Magnolia\u2019s clients, a professor who has moved away but is reluctant to sell her Brickell condominium.<\/p>\n

In the novel, Magnolia observes of the professor, \u201cWhile growing roots elsewhere, she\u2019s nevertheless having trouble letting go.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Charles, the passage captures the complicated struggle between building a life elsewhere and remaining attached to the place left behind.<\/p>\n

For Danticat, the book was a way to hold onto the city she had come to know through its neighborhoods and communities. And after more than 20 years here, she said there was no separating the novel from the place that helped produce it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is definitely a book born out of the soil of Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0ArtburstMiami.com<\/a> is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don\u2019t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by Artburst Miami, South Florida’s nonprofit source for arts journalism. While doing some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[15236,152956,152959,152969,152957,152971,152955,152958,152972,152970,152964,152967,8367,152965,152973,152960,152966,118633,152968,152961,225,227,226,79108,123,152962,152963,4570],"class_list":["post-381158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-belonging","tag-dy","tag-dy-book","tag-dy-edwidge-danticat-novel-miami","tag-dy-novel","tag-dy-novel-about-haiti-and-miami","tag-edwidge-danticat","tag-edwidge-danticat-dy","tag-edwidge-danticat-haiti-miami-book","tag-edwidge-danticat-new-novel-dy","tag-edwidge-danticat-novel","tag-grief-and-mourning","tag-haiti","tag-haitian-american-author","tag-haitian-american-experience-in-miami","tag-haitian-american-literature","tag-haitian-culture","tag-haitian-diaspora","tag-haitian-life-in-miami","tag-haitian-literature","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-little-haiti","tag-miami","tag-miami-literature","tag-miami-novel","tag-migration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}