Watching the news reports, it is often hard to tell whether there are real living and breathing women in conflict-stricken places like Haiti. The eve… - Edwidge Danticat

We have a Haitian saying: Fanm se poto mitán. Women are middle pillars of society. I think that's true of all societies. I agree to the often quoted maxim that we hold up half the sky. Sojourner Truth, in her famous speech, said that if Eve were able to change the course all alone we should be able to do more together today. Those are the foundations of my feminism, my activism as a feminist/womanist...For a lot of poor families, the men are abroad or the society has crushed them and they're absent for one reason or another. The women may not be labeling themselves feminists or womanists, but they're doing the work. They're keeping the children alive. They're keeping the family going. That's a developed-world, as well as a developing-world reality.

'...Did the stars visit him upon me in caprice? To teach me that a lifetime can be vast as a hundred years or sudden as a few breaths? Enjoy this one you have left. It all passes so fast. In the time it takes to draw a breath.' (p116)

I just fell in love with the idea of writing about the sea, and there are many proverbs the sea in Haitian Creole. You know, one is ... 'The sea doesn't hide dirt,' and proverbs about, you know, 'My back is as large as the sea,' which is something you say if people start talking badly about you. And, of course, for a lot of people in terms of migration, the sea is also the way out. So, you have an island and you have the sea, and it's extraordinarily fascinating to me.