Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat

Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Around the World: 18 of 52 (Haiti)

Beautifully written stories, featuring women in difficult lives. I particularly enjoyed the epilogue, "Women Like Us," that has a sense of a recited poem to it.

I had selected a pile of books set in various Caribbean places to read when I was in the Caribbean, so it was interesting to end up reading Krik? Krak! while I was in the Bahamas. A recurring theme throughout these stories is how Bahamians treat Haitians cruelly. Just a few islands away!

"They treat Haitians like dogs in the Bahamas, a woman says. To them, we are not human. Even though our music sounds like ours. Their people look like ours. Even though we had the same African fathers who probably crossed these same seas together."

"We know people by their stories."
This is true. I'd like to read more of Danticat, particularly post-earthquake.

"Are there women who both cook and write? Kitchen poets, they call them. They slip phrases into their stew and wrap meaning around their pork before frying it. They make narrative dumplings and stuff their daughter's mouths so they say nothing more."