SOURCE: "Haitian Tales, Flatbush Scenes," in The New York Times, January 26, 1995, pp. C1, C8.

In the following essay, based on discussions with Danticat, Pierre-Pierre examines her past in Haiti and her present life as a Haitian-American living in Brooklyn.

It was the kind of dark, cold New York winter day that sundrenched people from the Caribbean dread. But Edwidge Danticat, a 25-year-old Haitian-American novelist who immigrated to Brooklyn a little more than a dozen years ago, would not let it dampen her spirits.

"You want some coffee, tea?" she said in a soft melodic voice, as if the liquids would warm the day. "The tea is cannelle."

So Ms. Danticat (her name is pronounced ed-WEEDJ dahn-tee-CAH), the author of Breath, Eyes, Memory, her first novel, which was published by Soho Press last spring and received respectful reviews, set small flowered, ceramic cups on a coffee table. She settled...