SOURCE: “Author Edwidge Danticat Writes about Being Young, Black, Haitian, and Female,” in Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, May 1, 1995.

In the following interview, Fichtner and Danticat discuss biographical elements that have influenced Danticat's work, some of her early writing experiences, and her legacy.

It is 9:30 a.m., and the voice on the phone from Brooklyn—a voice that at times seems to brim with loss and longing—shudders a bit and then creeps slowly from the shadows of weariness and sleep. “This is Edwidge,” it says with the softness of a half-stifled yawn. “Sorry.”

The name is indeed Edwidge. Edwidge Danticat. Say it this way: “Ed-WEEJ Dahn-tee-CAH.” Remember it well.

When Haitian-born Danticat slipped onto the U.S. literary scene last year with her transcultural, transgenerational first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, critics hailed the book's emotional complexity and its resonant portrayal of the burdens history, politics and culture impose...