Edwidge Danticat is a renowned Haitian American novelist and short story writer. She was born on January 19, 1969. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published in 1994 and gained significant acclaim as it became an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has authored and edited numerous books, exploring themes such as national identity, mother-daughter relationships, and diasporic politics.

She has received numerous awards and honors, including being named the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University in 2023.

Some of her notable works include Krik? Krak!, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Brother, I’m Dying, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, The Art of Death, and Everything Inside. She is also the editor of The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir, and Haiti Noir 2.

Her work for younger audiences includes books such as Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama's Nightingale, Untwine, My Mommy Medicine, and a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2007 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography in 2008.

Danticat's accolades include being a 2009 MacArthur Fellow, a 2018 Ford Foundation “Art of Change” fellow, and the winner of awards such as the Neustadt International Prize (2018), St. Louis Literary Award (2019), Bocas Nonfiction Prize (2011), Bocas Fiction Prize (2020), Vilcek Prize for Literature (2020), and PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story (2023). Her upcoming essay collection, We’re Alone, is set to be published in September 2024.