Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory begins in Haiti in the early 1980s, when Haiti was ruled by the dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Widespread poverty, illiteracy, and government-sponsored violence oppress the population, but Danticat's heroine, twelve-year-old Sophie Caco, has led a relatively sheltered life in the small town of Croix-des-Rosets. Although her family have always been poor agricultural laborers, she and her aunt are better off because Sophie's mother, Martine, moved to Brooklyn when Sophie was two, and sends money home every month.

Martine's move to Brooklyn was a form of escape, since she was raped at age sixteen by a Tonton Macoute, or guerrilla, one of many allowed by the government to kill, torture, and rape anyone he wanted to. This rape resulted in Sophie's birth, but Martine, unable to bear the painful memories, left Haiti, and Sophie, in search of a new life...