Dèy |An Evening with Edwidge Danticat in discussion with Jacqueline Charles

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“Is home the place where we are born? Or is it the place where we die?” These questions haunt Magnolia, a successful Haitian American real estate agent in Miami, after she hears the terrifying sounds of gunfire while shopping for her daughter’s first-ever cell phone; she takes shelter in a restaurant called Oasis, cowering with fellow shoppers and diners, each praying to their respective gods.
Once she’s safely home, Magnolia hides the fact that she was at the mall shooting from everyone close to her. But given her life back, she begins to see it all clearly, and as if for the first time—what the extraordinary bond she has with her daughter, Zoë, really means to her, and what Zoë may feel in return; what the nearly broken relationship she has with her partner, Harrison, has cost her, despite his love for her and their daughter; why her mentally troubled mother—whose unraveling patterns Magnolia worries she’s spiraling toward herself—might be so ghost-haunted; what the source of her father’s pain, and his reason for seeking solace in the arms of a mistress, really is. As Magnolia struggles through the labyrinth of her past, she must also come to terms with the losses sustained that traumatic day, losses that we all bear witness to all too often in our troubling times.
Can love, can family, protect us from harm? Does optimism or fear win out in one’s heart, one’s soul? Which side will win out for Magnolia—and where does she really belong? Pulled between these questions, and her beloved, high-stakes choices and worlds—Miami or Haiti, single or married, mortal or ghost, before or after—Magnolia is one of the most compelling characters that Danticat has ever created—a narrator who is "yon pati koukouy, part firefly": shimmering, flitting between choices, drawn to the light yet emitting her own.
Taking its title from the Creole word for mourning, Dèy is a profoundly warm and moving novel about the importance of sharing grief and leave-taking, but also of the ties of family—takeout dinners around a table, fresh dirt on a plant’s roots in the garden, swimming together in the azure seas. As Magnolia questions whether all has not yet been lost, Dèy celebrates the complexity of life in a brave and striking novel that is one of Danticat’s most powerful and deeply affecting works yet, told with a signature “unfaltering voice and evocative beauty” (The Boston Globe).

EDWIDGE DANTICAT is the author of numerous books, including The Art of Death, a National Book Critics Circle finalist; Claire of the Sea Light, a New York Times Notable Book; Brother, I'm Dying, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist; The Dew Breaker, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah's Book Club selection; and Krik? Krak!, also a National Book Award finalist. A Neustadt International Prize for Literature winner and the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhere.

Jacqueline Charles is a distinguished, multilingual journalist known for her in-depth and critical coverage of Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean. She is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for her coverage of Haiti’s devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and an Emmy Award winner. She has reported on Haiti for more than two decades for the Miami Herald. Described as “Haiti’s ambassador to the world” by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Jacqueline’s list of awards and recognitions are numerous. They include a Maria Moors Cabot Prize, the most prestigious prize for coverage of the Americas, and the 2024 Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism. In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious International Center for Journalism’s Excellence in International Reporting Award for her insightful reporting over the years, as well as an Overseas Press Club of America award for leading the Miami Herald into its deep investigation into the M**der plot of President Moïse.

Jacqueline was born in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory, and spent her early childhood in South Caicos before emigrating to the United States, living in Miami's predominately Black Overtown neighborhood. Her journalism career began at age 14 as a Herald intern.

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